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THE  CULTURE  OF 

* 

ANCIENT  ISRAEL 


BY 

CARL  HEINRICH   CORNILL 

PROFESSOR  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT   HISTORY  IN  THE   UNIVERSITY 
OF  HALLE 


CHICAGO  LONDON 

THE  OPEN  COURT  PUBLISHING  CO. 

1914 


COPYRIGHT  BY 

THE  OPEN  COURT  PUBLISHING  CO. 
I9«4 


ZtVB 


0. 

UJ 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Rise  of  the  People  of  Israel  (Translated  by  A.  H.  Gun- 

logsen)  .  . 1 

Moses,  the  Founder  of  Monotheistic  Religion  (Translated 

by  Lydia  G.  Robinson)  38 

The  Education  of  Children  in  Ancient  Israel  (Translated 

by  W.  H.  Carruth)  68 

Music  in  the  Old  Testament  (Translated  by  Lydia  G. 

Robinson)  101 

The  Psalms  in  Universal  Literature  (Translated  by  W.  H. 

Carruth)  133 

Index  .  .  163 


m 


RISE  OF  THE  PEOPLE  OF  ISRAEL. 


A^Y  one  wishing  to  speak  upon  the  history  of 
the  people  of  Israel  must  regard  himself  as 
particularly  favored,  from  the  very  nature  of  the 
subject  itself.  To  all  of  us  Abraham  and  Moses, 
Saul  and  David,  and  the  others  of  whatever  name, 
are  like  dear  old  acquaintances.  These,  in  fact,  are 
among  the  first  impressions  which  the  susceptible 
minds  of  children  receive,  and  the  unique  magic  of 
religious  poetry  that  clings  to  these  legends  always 
deeply  and  ineffaceably  impresses  itself  upon  their 
youthful  hearts;  and  even  he  who  has  long  since 
forgotten  to  look  upon  the  Bible  with  the  eyes  of 
faith,  nevertheless  will  not  be  able  to  wipe  out  alto- 
gether those  tender  youthful  memories. 

Accordingly,  I  may  anticipate  a  general  interest 
in  and,  at  least  in  its  broad  outlines,  assume  a  certain 
general  knowledge  of  the  subject  to  be  treated. 
Still,  on  the  other  hand,  this  knowledge  is  not  so 
complete  that  I  may  not  hope  to  be  able  to  show 
those  old  and  well-known  forms  in  a  new  light,  and 
through  the  accumulation  of  various  details  and  the 
revelation  of  a  grand  historical  inward  connection, 


2  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT   ISRAEL. 

to  work  them  into  well-colored  and  realistic  histor- 
ical pictures. 

Indeed,  what  an  astonishing  wealth  and  variety 
of  separate  material  is  here  ready  at  hand!  The 
history  of  the  people  of  Israel,  in  fact,  shares  with 
the  common  and  many-sided  life  of  humanity  the 
eminent  quality  of  being  interesting  at  whatever 
point  we  may  touch  it.  We  may  turn  our  attention 
to  characters  more  particularly  belonging  to  political 
history  and  we  shall  behold  Saul,  David,  Ahab;  or 
to  the  heroes  of  the  soul,  and  we  shall  encounter 
Moses,  Samuel,  Elijah.  We  behold  the  ruin  of  the 
people  as  a  political  nation  through  Babylonian  con- 
quest, and  the  resurrection  of  the  people  as  a  relig- 
ious sect  through  Ezra  and  Nehemiah.  The  ideal 
heroical  figures  of  the  early  Maccabees  justly  awaken 
our  admiration,  and  even  their  degenerate  descend- 
ants, during  the  period  of  the  people's  decadence, 
are  themselves  not  altogether  destitute  of  a  certain 
attraction.  The  truculent  grandeur  of  a  King  Herod, 
and  the  appalling  extermination  of  the  nation  by  the 
Roman  sword — the  most  heartrending  catastrophe, 
perhaps,  that  history  ever  has  witnessed — fitly  close 
this  grand  historical  panorama,  in  which  on  every 
side  and  at  all  times  we  are  confronted  by  entrancing 
phenomena,  arousing  all  our  interest. 

From  out  of  this  superabundant  wealth  of  ac- 
cumulated materials  I  shall  select  particularly  the 
rise  of  the  people  of  Israel  and  of  its  national  or- 
ganization ;  and  as  legitimate  ground  for  this  prefer- 
ence of  mine  I  may  remark  that  it  accords  perfectly 


RISE  OF  THE   PEOPLE  OF   ISRAEL.  3 

with  the  predominant  trait  of  our  century  and  of  its 
science,  to  investigate  precisely  the  origins  of  organ- 
isms, and  to  explain  all  the  most  hidden  processes 
in  the  life  and  action  of  nature;  for  the  nations  of 
the  earth  may  likewise  be  regarded  as  organisms. 
Still,  my  principal  motive  in  choosing  this  part  of 
the  subject  was  the  hope  of  being  able  to  contribute 
results  regarding  this  very  epoch  which  are  least 
known.  In  fact,  since  the  grand  work  of  Heinrich 
Ewald,  signalizing  an  epoch  in  these  researches, 
science  has  not  achieved  more  for  any  era  of  the 
history  of  the  people  of  Israel  than  for  the  history 
of  its  primitive  existence.  Our  present  subject,  ac- 
cordingly, expressed  in  popular  language,  will  em- 
brace the  period  from  Abraham  to  David,  as  related 
in  the  Pentateuch  and  in  the  books  of  Joshua,  Judges 
and  Samuel. 

The  usual  exposition  is  to  the  effect  that  Abraham 
went  forth  from  the  land  of  Haran  into  Canaan  in 
order  to  settle  there.  In  the  fourth  generation  after 
him  his  descendants  migrated  to  Egypt.  In  the  lat- 
ter country  for  a  long  period  they  led  a  quiet  and 
peaceful  life  until  the  unbearable  oppression  of  the 
Egyptians  drove  them  out  of  the  country.  Their 
leader,  Moses,  by  birth  a  Hebrew  yet  thoroughly 
imbued  with  Egyptian  culture,  led  them  through  the 
desert  and  across  the  peninsula  of  Sinai,  back  to 
the  land  of  their  fathers.  Moses  conquered  the  land 
to  the  east  of  the  Jordan,  Joshua  the  land  to  the  west 
of  that  river ;  the  latter  almost  entirely  exterminated 
the  Canaanite  population  and  allotted  the  land  as  un- 


4  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

tenanted  possessions  to  the  Israelites.  Thereupon 
twelve  judges  in  succession  wielded  supreme  power 
over  the  people,  until  finally  the  national  kingdom 
arose  in  the  person  of  the  Benjamite  Saul,  and  in 
the  person  of  his  successor,  David,  was  transferred 
to  the  house  of  Judah. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  this  was  the  prevailing 
idea  as  early  as  the  time  of  the  Babylonian  exile, 
when  the  historical  books  of  the  Old  Testament  were 
for  the  first  time  subjected  to  a  comprehensive  re- 
vision ;  and  in  fact  to-day,  upon  the  whole,  the  books 
of  Judges,  Samuel,  and  Kings  lie  before  us  in  this 
shape. 

This  version  is  a  relatively  recent  one,  having 
arisen  at  a  period  when  living  historical  tradition 
no  longer  afforded  information.  The  oldest  written 
sources,  having  by  a  fortunate  chance  been  only 
slightly  digested  and  thus  preserved  in  all  substantial 
features,  were  incorporated  in  the  great  historical 
collection  and  give  a  widely  different  picture  of  the 
earliest  history  of  the  people  of  Israel. 

At  this  point  there  arises  the  unavoidable  question 
whether,  generally  speaking,  we  are  permitted  to  re- 
gard these  oldest  traditions  of  the  people  of  Israel 
as  history  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word.  Not  be- 
fore the  exodus  from  Egypt  can  we  speak  in  a  strict 
sense  of  a  history  of  the  people  of  Israel.  All  that 
lies  before  this  point  of  time  may  be  characterized 
as  prehistoric  or  primeval.  Only  in  the  first  book 
of  Moses,  the  book  of  Genesis,  is  information  to  be 
had  of  this  prehistoric  or  primeval  era. 


RISE  OF   THE   PEOPLE  OF  ISRAEL.  5 

Even  if  we  regard  Moses  as  the  author  of  the  five 
books  that  bear  his  name,  yet  concerning  this  remote 
epoch,  separated  from  his  own  by  a  series  of  cen- 
turies, Moses  himself  would  have  had  to  resort  to 
oral  hearsay  and  tradition.  It  was  impossible  for 
him  to  report  these  things  as  an  eye-witness.  But 
it  is  now  generally  conceded  that  Moses  cannot  pos- 
sibly be  the  author  of  the  books  ascribed  to  him. 
These  books  have  rather  originated  from  the  com- 
prehensive digestion  of  a  whole  series  of  indepen- 
dent written  sources,  of  which  the  oldest  cannot  be 
older  than  King  Solomon,  nor  yet  much  later,  and 
which  consequently  were  written  between  900  and 
850.  Thus  between  them  and  Moses  there  is  an 
interval  of  several  centuries.  Only  a  few  scattered 
sections  in  the  books  of  Judges  and  Samuel,  and  a 
few  poetical  fragments  from  the  Pentateuch  might 
be  older.  No  comprehensive  and  coherent  historical 
work  earlier  than  900  can  be  proved. 

The  memory  of  the  past,  accordingly,  has  been 
handed  down  substantially  through  the  medium  of 
oral  tradition.  The  Israelitic  nation  itself  is  the 
author  of  these  historical  narrations,  to  which  the 
biblical  narrator,  in  giving  them  a  permanent  written 
form,  has  only  imparted  a  finer  psychological  char- 
acter and  the  magic  of  his  unsurpassed  art  of  pres- 
entation. The  material  contents,  the  ingredients  of 
these  narrations,  must  be  regarded  from  the  point 
of  view  of  popular  tradition,  of  legend. 

What  is  legend  ?  Its  main  characteristic,  of  course, 
is  popularity.  Legend  is  a  natural  product  unaf- 


6  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

fected  by  tendencies,  an  unconscious  poetry;  and 
moreover  it  is  characteristic  of  legend  that  it  does 
not  invent  its  material  but  embellishes  extant  tradi- 
tion with  poetic  imagery.  Legend  winds  itself  like 
ivy  about  cold  matters  of  fact,  often  resistlessly 
overpowering  them  and  flourishing  in  rank  luxuri- 
ance, yet  not  able  to  thrive  without  them  and  un- 
supported by  them. 

Legend  and  history,  therefore,  are  not  contradic- 
tions, but  advance  together  in  brotherly  harmony; 
legend  from  its  very  nature  presupposing  an  histor- 
ical substratum.  Only  traditions  that  are  attached 
to  some  definite  locality,  some  definite  monument  or 
name,  are  to  be  regarded  as  exceptions  to  the  truth 
of  these  remarks.  Traditions  of  the  latter  kind  ad- 
here exclusively  to  the  locality,  monument,  or  name 
that  they  are  intended  to  explain.  Instead  of  an 
historical  substratum  they  here  have  a  material  one, 
but  even  in  these  instances  they  still  have  a  substra- 
tum. The  legend  always  stands  with  firm,  marrowy 
frame  upon  solid  and  durable  ground,  and  not  with 
uncertain  foothold  touching  the  stars,  a  sport  for 
wind  and  wave.  On  this  ground,  precisely,  in  my 
opinion,  we  are  altogether  wrong  in  looking  upon 
legend  with  an  exaggerated  skepticism. 

Legend  bears  a  resemblance  to  the  youthful  mem- 
ories of  man.  The  child  will  not  retain  everything, 
but  only  distinct  events,  and  not  always  the  most 
important;  but  what  it  does  retain  it  retains  firmly. 
'  And  above  all  the  child  will  never  be  mistaken  as  to 
the  total  character  of  its  childhood.  A  man  who 


RISE  OF  THE   PEOPLE  OF   ISRAEL.  7 

has  spent  a  cheerless  youth  will  never  imagine  that 
he  has  been  a  merry,  happy  child;  a  man  who  has 
been  raised  in  a  village  or  among  the  mountains  will 
never  believe  that  he  was  born  in  a  large  city  or  on 
the  plain.  The  youthful  reminiscences  of  nations 
must  also  be  judged  according  to  this  same  analogy. 
The  ready-made,  artistically  complete,  and  finished 
shape  that  these  reminiscences  have  assumed  on  the 
lips  of  the  people,  or  of  any  great  poet,  is  not  to  be 
called  legend  and  as  such  the  result  of  unintentional 
poetic  creation;  but,  on  the  contrary,  its  historical 
substratum  and  the  basic  character  of  the  whole 
must  be  regarded  as  authentic  tradition. 

It  shall  be  my  endeavor  to  sketch  in  brief  outline 
the  character  of  the  historical  substratum  underlying 
the  oldest  traditions  of  the  people  of  Israel,  and  to 
show  how  upon  this  basis  may  be  erected  the  true 
course  of  the  early  history  of  this  remarkable  people. 

According  to  established  tradition  the  people  of 
Israel  were  not  native  in  the  land  that  afterwards 
became  their  home,  but  had  immigrated  from  the 
northeast  of  Mesopotamia.  This  tradition  is  all 
the  more  striking  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  lan- 
guage spoken  by  the  people  of  Israel  could  only 
have  originated  in  Canaan  itself.  This  linguistic 
difficulty  was  felt  even  in  biblical  times,  as  the  re- 
markable forty-seventh  verse  in  the  thirty-first  chap- 
ter of  Genesis  testffies.  In  this  verse,  which  is 
plainly  the  product  of  a  later  learned  interpretation, 
"Laban  the  Aramaean"  calls  the  stone-wall  which 


8  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

Jacob  in  the  Hebrew  language  had  called  Galeed, 
"Jegar-Sahadutha,"  a  correct  Aramaean  expression.1 
According  to  the  familiar  tradition  of  the  He- 
brews themselves  their  primitive  home  was  in  the 
mountainous  tract  extending  between  the  left  bank 
of  the  Tigris  and  Lake  Van,  which  separates  Meso- 
potamia from  Armenia,  and  by  the  Greek  geog- 
raphers is  called  Arrhapachitis.  (Arphaxad,  son  of 
Shem,  is  the  ancestor  of  the  Hebrew  people — Gen. 
x.  22-25 ;  xi.  10).  From  the  above-mentioned  high- 
lands there  descended  an  emigration  of  tribes  into 
the  fertile  plain  of  Mesopotamia.  (Salah,  Arpha- 
xad's  son,  denotes  "emigration,"  "emission."  See 
Gen.  x.  24;  xi.  12.)  They  crossed  (Eber,  Salah's 
son,  is  "crossing,"  "passage";  Gen.  x.  24;  xi.  14) 
the  Tigris,  and  then  they  separated,  (Peleg,  Eber's 
son,  is  "separation,"  "division."  See  Gen.  x.  25; 
xi.  16).  The  main  body  advanced  through  the  heart 
of  the  region  and  finally  settled  in  and  around  the 
Haran,  the  Karrhae  of  the  ancients,  in  the  north- 
western part  of  Mesopotamia.  A  smaller  band,  in- 
cluding the  ancestors  of  Israel,  struck  out  in  the 
opposite  direction  toward  the  extreme  southeast,  and 
at  Ur  in  Southern  Babylonia  (Gen.  xi.  28,  31)  en- 
deavored to  obtain  possession  of  permanent  settle- 
ments; still  in  the  end  they  preferred  to  follow  the 
main  body  of  their  kinsmen  to  Haran  (Gen.  xi.  31). 
Here  their  migratory  instincts  awoke  once  more. 
Following  the  direction  of  the  common  highroad  of 

*A11  Hebrew  words  and  names  are  given  according  to  the 
spelling  of  the  King  James  Bible. 


RISE  OF  THE   PEOPLE  OF  ISRAEL.  9 

the  ancient  world  between  Egypt  and  Babylonia 
they  journeyed  still  further  toward  the  southwest 
(Gen.  xii.  4,  5).  The  great  leader  of  this  tribal 
migration  was  Abraham. 

The  most  careful  and  impartial  weighing  of  all 
adverse  arguments  and  difficulties  has  not  as  yet 
been  able  to  shake  my  faith  in  the  genuine  historical 
authenticity  of  Abraham.  I  regard  Abraham  as 
an  historical  personality  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the 
word,  as  really  so  as  Alaric,  the  king  of  the  Visi- 
goths, or  Rurik,  the  prince  of  the  Varangians. 

Egypt,  perhaps,  was  the  original  ultimate  goal  of 
this  Abrahamic  migration,  that  same  Egypt  which 
time  out  of  mind  had  exerted  a  kind  of  magic  at- 
traction upon  all  Semitic  tribes,  and  which  probably 
even  during  the  very  centuries  of  the  Abrahamic 
emigration  had  on  repeated  occasions,  and  not  al- 
ways willingly,  received  and  harbored  Semitic  guests 
on  its  fruitful  soil.  Still,  the  story  purporting  to  be 
an  account  of  Abraham's  expedition  into  Egypt 
(Gen.  xii.  10-20),  is  altogether  a  recent  one  and 
purely  a  luxuriant  outgrowth  from  the  stem  of  the 
original  tradition.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  Abra- 
hamic migration  remained  in  Canaan.  One  division 
of  this  migration,  the  one  personified  in  Lot,  moved 
toward  the  eastern  bank  of  the  Jordan  (Gen.  xiii. 
7-12),  where  comparatively  early  both  nationally 
and  politically  it  became  consolidated  as  Moab  and 
Ammon  (Gen.  xix.  37-38).  Abraham  himself  set- 
tled in  the  west  Jordan  region,  Canaan  proper  ( Gen. 
xiii.  12). 


10  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

Abraham  and  his  tribal  kinsmen  were  nomads, 
wandering  shepherds,  roaming  peacefully  about  the 
country,  whereas  the  aboriginal  inhabitants  of  the 
land  had  long  before  attained  the  higher  culture  of 
city  life.  The  immigrants  borrowed  their  language 
from  the  latter,  but  at  the  same  time  guarded  as  be- 
fore the  primitive  purity  of  their  pastoral  life,  and 
their  healthy,  simple  natural  sense  revolted  above 
all  against  the  religion  of  the  Canaanites. 

The  religious  character  of  the  Canaanites  particu- 
larly displayed  two  characteristic  manifestations, 
namely,  religious  obscenity,  and  infant  sacrifice. 
Abraham  held  aloof  from  both.  In  the  touching 
and  deeply  poetical  story  of  the  intended  sacrifice 
of  Isaac  for  whom  ultimately  a  ram  was  substituted, 
tradition  has  recorded  Abraham's  positive  rejection 
of  infant  sacrifice  (Gen.  xxii). 

In  describing  this  predominant  feature  and  in 
characterizing  Abraham  as  a  religious  hero,  tradi- 
tion has,  further,  correctly  interpreted  the  true  state 
of  things.  The  work  of  Moses  was  not  absolutely 
new;  it  is  linked  to  a  popular  initiative  of  the  past, 
and  there  is  no  reason  for  entertaining  a  doubt, 
when  tradition  even  in  this  most  specific  manifesta- 
tion of  the  Israelitic  popular  spirit  makes  Abraham 
the  patriarch  of  his  race;  although  very  naturally 
we  now  are  unable  to  prove  and  correctly  expound 
in  all  its  details  this  "faith  of  Abraham." 

The  descendants  of  Abraham  in  the  region  west 
of  Jordan,  true  to  the  usage  and  customs  of  their 
fathers,  continued  to  be  wandering  nomads.  Being 


RISE  OF  THE   PEOPLE  OF  ISRAEL.  11 

unable  to  wrest  lands  from  the  superior  power  of 
the  Canaanites,  they  turned  their  eyes  southward 
to  the  highlands  about  Mount  Seir,  where  the  primi- 
tive tribes  of  the  Horites  stood  far  below  the  Ca- 
naanites both  in  power  and  culture.  The  main 
body  of  the  descendants  of  Abraham,  accordingly, 
pushed  forward  toward  the  south,  conquered  the 
Horites,  and  settled  down  permanently  on  Mount 
Seir  as  Edom  (Gen.  xxxvi.  1 ;  Deut.  ii.  12-22)  and 
soon  effected  their  national  and  political  consolida- 
tion. Edom  thereupon  remained  in  undisputed  pos- 
session of  the  aforesaid  territory. 

The  remnants  of  the  descendants  of  Abraham, 
who  had  remained  behind  on  the  west  side  of  the 
Jordan,  would  perhaps  have  been  absorbed  by  the 
Canaanites,  or  would  have  been  compelled  to  seek 
connection  with  one  of  the  kindred  tribes,  if  a  new 
and  considerable  immigration  from  the  common 
ancestral  home  of  Haran  had  not  brought  them 
aid  and  reinforcements.  This  was  the  Jacobite  mi- 
gration, represented  in  the  person  of  Jacob. 

It  is  the  merit  of  Ewald  with  subtle  insight  to 
have  detected  in  Jacob  the  "after-comer,"  the  "loit- 
erer." 

Jacob  appears  as  the  father  of  twelve  sons.  These 
are  the  twelve  tribes  into  which  in  historical  times 
the  people  of  Israel  were  divided.  The  twelve  tribes 
again  became  subdivided  into  four  groups,  by  legend 
personified  in  four  mothers,  two  legitimate  wives 
and  two  concubines  of  the  patriarch :  a  Leah-group, 
a  Rachel-group,  a  Bilhah-group,  and  a  Zilpah-group. 


12  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

Leah  and  Rachel  were  the  more  considerable,  Bil- 
hah  and  Zilpah  the  inferior  groups.  The  Leah- 
group  surpassed  all  the  others  in  number  and  im- 
portance, and  the  Zilpah  division  was  connected 
with  it;  yet  the  Rachel-group  was  hardly  inferior  in 
power  and  nobility,  and  the  Bilhah-group  closely 
adhered  to  the  latter. 

The  legend  states  that  Jacob  brought  along  with 
him  his  eleven  sons  but  of  Haran ;  only  the  youngest, 
Benjamin,  was  born  in  Canaan.  Might  we  also  from 
this  draw  certain  historical  conclusions  ?  As  regards 
the  rise  and  growth  of  the  tribes,  we  are  confronted 
with  the  most  obscure  problems  of  the  prehistoric 
period  of  the  people  of  Israel,  which  perhaps  will 
never  be  perfectly  cleared  up.  Tradition  is  only  in 
so  far  incontrovertibly  right  as  it  relegates  the  be- 
ginnings of  tribal  growth  to  pre-Egyptian  times, 
while  weighty  reasons  corroborate  the  truth  of  this 
fact ;  and  we  have  likewise  to  regard  as  correct  that 
the  tribe  of  Benjamin  branched  off  from  that  of 
Joseph  at  a  comparatively  late  period.  But  nothing 
more  definite  than  this  can  be  asserted. 

Ewald  has  given  expression  to  a  clear  hypothesis, 
which,  in  fact,  possesses  a  high  degree  of  probabil- 
ity. He  believes  that  in  the  Leah-group  he  can  dis- 
cern the  remnants  of  the  Abrahamic  group  that  re- 
mained in  Canaan ;  in  the  Rachel-group  the  auxiliary 
reinforcement  from  Haran,  that  is,  the  Jacobite  mi- 
gration— a  statement  that  asserts  much.  At  all 
events,  the  Jacobite  migration  certainly  did  join  the 
remnants  of  the  Abrahamic  migration  that  had  re- 


RISE  OF  THE   PEOPLE  OF  ISRAEL.  13 

mained  in  Canaan,  and  henceforth  becomes  the  rep- 
resentative of  the  entire  national  and  historical  de- 
velopment. The  Jacobite  migration,  however,  en- 
tered not  only  externally  but  also  spiritually  upon 
the  inheritance  of  Abraham.  The  faith  of  Abraham 
passed  to  Jacob  and  was  perpetuated  in  him  as  the 
father's  noblest  legacy. 

Yet  at  an  early  time  there  must  have  arisen  con- 
tentions among  the  kindred  tribes.  Joseph,  from 
whom  Benjamin  perhaps  had  not  as  yet  branched 
off,  boasting  his  power  and  noble  pedigree,  claimed 
the  supreme  hegemony,  but  was  forced  to  yield  to 
a  coalition  of  the  other  tribes  and  went  into  Egypt, 
where  the  rich  pasturages  of  the  Asiatic  borderland 
had  been  since  remote  antiquity  the  playground  of 
Semitic  nomads.  The  Leah-tribes  at  this  juncture 
seem  to  have  attempted  to  draw  the  Bilhah-tribes, 
Dan  and  Naphtali,  into  the  sphere  of  their  power, 
the  latter  subtribes  having  been  deprived  of  their 
old  support ;  and  Reuben,  particularly,  seems  to  have 
intended  to  do  them  violence  (Gen.  xxxv.  22).  But 
both  those  vigorous  and  valiant  tribes  were  able  to 
maintain  their  independence,  and  Reuben  himself 
came  out  of  this  contention  so  severely  damaged 
that  henceforth  and  for  all  time  to  come  he  lost  his 
"primogeniture,"  his  old  power  and  tribal  prestige 
(Gen.  xlix.  4). 

Later  there  occurred  events  that  forced  them  all 
to  emigrate;  but  we  are,  of  course,  utterly  unable 
to  give  a  precise  account  of  these  events.  On  this 
occasion  Joseph  wreaked  a  noble  vengeance,  hos- 


14  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

pitably  receiving  his  brothers  in  the  district  in  which 
he  had  settled,  oblivious  of  former  injuries  and  only 
mindful  of  the  old  relationship.  And  in  this  manner 
the  sons  of  Jacob  became  inhabitants  of  the  land  of 
Egypt. 

At  first  the  Egyptian  government  seems  to  have 
assumed  a  well-meaning  attitude  of  neutrality  toward 
the  strangers;  but  soon  the  situation  became  com- 
pletely altered.  The  Pharaoh  Ramses  II  happened, 
at  the  time,  to  be  involved  in  a  severe  conflict  with 
the  populations  and  kingdoms  of  western  Asia; 
Palestine,  partly  at  least,  being  the  theater  of  the 
struggle.  The  contest,  as  regards  Egypt,  ended, 
indeed,  not  in  open  defeat  nor  yet  in  victory;  the 
ultimate  result  being  a  peace  which  nevertheless 
failed  to  warrant  complete  security  to  either  side. 
The  consequence  was  that  henceforward  Ramses 
naturally  began  to  look  with  distrust  upon  the  for- 
eign population  of  alien  blood  that  had  settled  on 
the  Asiatic  border,  while  at  the  same  time  he  hap- 
pened to  be  in  need  of  laborers  for  his  numerous 
public  works.  He,  accordingly,  resorted  to  the  ex- 
pedient of  pressing  into  the  service  of  the  state  all 
the  Semites  who  were  settled  on  the  eastern  border 
of  Egypt  on  the  isthmus  of  Suez,  and  under  strict 
military  supervision  compelled  them  to  perform  toil- 
some villein-service. 

In  this  manner,  the  Israelites  had  been  turned 
from  free  nomads  into  Egyptian  socage-serfs.  So 
long  as  Ramses,  one  of  the  most  warlike  of  the 
Pharaohs,  wielded  his  iron  scepter  in  Egypt  with  a 


RISE  OF   THE   PEOPLE  OF  ISRAEL.  15 

strong  hand,  the  oppressed  Israelites  seem  reluc- 
tantly to  have  borne  up  with  their  hard  fate.  But 
even  chains  of  servitude  availed  not  to  break  the 
stubborn,  independent  heart  of  these  proud  Bedou- 
ins. When  the  turbulent  Ramses  was  succeeded  by 
a  son  very  unlike  his  father,  the  people  of  Israel 
again  took  heart.  There  only  lacked  a  resolute 
leader  who  should  guide  the  latent  ferment  to  a 
definite  goal ;  this  leader  was  soon  found. 

Moses,  a  Hebrew  of  the  tribe  of  Levi,  had  through 
a  fortunate  chance  been  received  into  the  ruling 
caste  of  Egypt  and  thus  found  an  opportunity  thor- 
oughly to  acquire  Egyptian  training  and  culture; 
but  the  natural  impulse  of  his  heart  drew  him  toward 
his  own  people.  He  preferred  to  be  the  brother  of 
these  despised  serfs  rather  than  live  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  Egyptian  splendor  and  magnificence.  His 
keen  insight  soon  discerned  that  the  only  way  to  free- 
dom from  the  iron  encompassment  of  Egyptian  for- 
tresses and  military  garrisons  lay  across  the  sea 
into  the  heart  of  the  desert.  It  was  a  desperate 
undertaking.  He  obtained  precise  information  con- 
cerning the  topography  and  the  political  situation  of 
the  neighboring  country,  allied  himself  with  kindred 
Bedouin  tribes  of  the  Arabian  desert,  and  when 
dreadful  scourges  and  visitations  were  terrifying  the 
Egyptians,  and  had  paralyzed  their  efforts,  Moses 
thought  the  right  moment  had  at  last  arrived.  His 
fellow  countrymen  with  many  other  kindred  national 
elements  in  their  train  (Ex.  xii.  38;  Num.  xi.  4) 


16  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

assembled,  and  forthwith  marched  out  from  the 
land  of  bondage. 

By  well-devised  marches  and  maneuvers  they  were 
able  to  deceive  the  Egyptian  guards  on  the  frontier ; 
they  soon  reached  the  Isthmus  of  Suez,  but  there 
they  were  overtaken  by  a  flying  corps  of  Egyptian 
cavalry.  Before  them  the  raging  sea,  behind  them 
their  pursuers,  panting  for  revenge.  It  was  a  mo- 
ment of  supreme  anxiety !  A  violent  northeast  wind 
drove  the  shallow  waters  from  the  channel,  and  they 
marched  through  on  the  dry  bottom  of  the  sea  into 
the  desert,  to  freedom.  The  pursuing  Egyptians 
were  overwhelmed  by  the  retreating  flood ;  but  Israel 
was  safe. 

The  entire  highway  leading  to  Canaan  being  in 
undisputed  possession  of  the  Egyptians,  and  the 
latter  by  treaties  with  the  neighboring  kingdoms  hav- 
ing stipulated  the  mutual  extradition  of  all  fugitives, 
Moses  accordingly  led  his  people  into  the  narrow 
defiles  of  Mount  Sinai,  which  were  accessible  indeed 
to  a  band  of  wandering  nomads  but  could  not  be 
approached  by  a  large  army.  Israel  tarried  for  a 
long  time  in  the  region  of  Mount  Sinai,  and  in  this 
grandly  impressive  mountainous  scenery  tradition 
has  located  the  scene  of  Moses's  greatest  work,  his 
religious  reorganization  of  the  people.  The  entire 
tradition  is  agreed  to  the  effect  that  Moses  was  the 
initiator,  pioneer,  and  creator  of  that  unique  spirit 
which  belonged  peculiarly  to  the  people  of  Israel 
and  through  which  it  most  radically  differed  from 
other  tribes  related  by  speech  and  descent.  There. 


RISE  OF  THE   PEOPLE  OF  ISRAEL.  17 

upon  Mount  Sinai,  Moses  gave  to  Israel  its  national 
God  Yahveh2  (this  is  the  original  and  correct  pro- 
nunciation, instead  of  Jehovah),  thereby  making 
Israel  a  nation  as  the  people  of  Yahveh.  The  name 
of  Yahveh,  in  fact,  cannot  be  explained  from  the 
Hebrew  tongue,  but  seems  to  have  been  borrowed 
from  Sinai ;  and,  indeed,  according  to  Israelitic  tra- 
dition, Moses's  adviser  and  assistant,  his  father-in- 
law  Jethro,  was  a  priest  of  Sinai  (Ex.  xviii). 

Still,  it  remains  utterly  impossible  to  state  pre- 
cisely and  positively  of  what  the  work  of  Moses 
really  consisted,  since  —  however  unwelcome  the 
truth  may  be — not  even  the  ten  commandments  can 
be  regarded  as  having  been  actually  formulated  by 
Moses;  we  have  here  only  an  inverted  conclusion 
from  effect  to  cause.  Israel  is  the  only  people  known 
to  us  that  never  had  a  mythology,  not  even  making 
the  easy  step,  by  way  of  complement,  of  associating 
a  female  divinity  with  the  highest  divine  being. 
Yahveh's  unique  nature  must  accordingly  be  a  Mo- 
saic idea.  Yahveh  alone  is  the  God  of  Israel  and 
this  Yahveh  is  the  origin  and  source  of  all  divine 
and  human  law.  This  must  be  a  thought  peculiarly 
Mosaic.  A  lofty  spiritualization  of  the  divine  idea 
and,  as  a  direct  result  of  this,  a  lofty  spiritualization 

"The  word  Yahveh,  according  to  the  traditional  etymology, 
is  derived  from  the  verb  hajah,  "to  live,  to  exist,  to  be,"  and 
signifies  "the  being,  the  living,  the  eternal  one."  So  it  is  ex- 
plained in  The  Idea  of  God,  pp.  7  and  8.  Professor  Cornill 
in  a  private  letter  to  the  publishers,  writes:  "My  reason  for 
not  considering  Yahveh  an  original  Hebrew  word  is  founded 
upon  the  fact  that  hajah,  in  the  sense  of  "to  be,"  is  not  Hebrew. 
In  a  word  originally  Hebrew  the  change  of  v  into  /  would  be 
difficult  to  account  for."— Tr. 


18  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

of  the  Ethos  are  to  be  regarded  the  prominent  fea- 
tures of  the  Mosaic  Yahveh  faith.  We  have,  more- 
over, to  attribute  to  Moses  the  creation  of,  at  least, 
a  very  simple  worship,  since  a  religion  without  wor- 
ship would  be,  with  primitive  nations,  inconceivable. 
The  institution,  also,  of  a  priesthood  as  the  only 
legitimate  mediator  between  Yahveh  and  Israel  must 
be  Mosaic;  but  the  tradition  that  Moses  entrusted 
his  brother  Aaron  with  this  high  office  has  not  been 
found  as  yet  among  the  oldest  sources. 

Sinai,  however,  was  only  a  station  and  not  the 
final  goal  of  the  migration.  Soon  after,  the  multi- 
tudes, strengthened  by  their  rest,  moved  onward; 
this  time  to  Kadesh-Barnea  in  the  desert  south  of 
Canaan  (Num.  xiii.  27;  xx.  1,  14;  Deut.  i.  19,  46; 
Judges  xi.  16,  17).  This  locality,  at  least,  seemed 
sufficiently  adapted  to  receive  the  permanent  coloni- 
zation of  frugal  shepherds;  it  lay  beyond  the  reach 
of  the  Egyptian  arms,  and  yet  on  the  very  threshold 
of  the  coveted  land  itself.  Here  they  might  quietly 
await  the  development  of  things.  According  to  all 
traces  the  sojourn  in  Kadesh  must  have  been  a 
rather  long  one.  Moses  probably  died  there.  Tra- 
dition is  constant  in  regard  to  the  point  that  he  never 
personally  entered  the  land  of  promise;  in  fact, 
neither  he  nor  any  other  of  the  emigrants  that  left 
Egypt.  And  this  constant  tradition  is  all  the  weightier 
if  we  recall  to  mind  that  here  there  is  the  question  of 
a  distance  that  under  normal  circumstances  it  would 
be  easy  to  complete  within  a  fortnight. 

An  external  event  finally  brought  Israel  to  the 


RISE  OF   THE   PEOPLE  OF  ISRAEL.  19 

goal  of  its  wishes.  The  Canaanites,  here  called 
Amorites,  under  a  king  called  Sihon,  made  an  ad- 
vance upon  the  eastern  bank  of  the  Jordan,  drove 
the  Moabites  and  Ammonites  out  of  the  most  fertile 
parts  of  their  territory  and  founded  a  new  Amorite 
kingdom  with  the  capital  at  Hesbon  (Num.  xxi.  26). 
Then  Moab  and  Ammon  remembered  their  kinsmen 
in  the  desert  at  Kadesh,  and  themselves,  perhaps, 
on  this  occasion  invoked  the  aid  of  Israel.  At  all 
events  they  were  welcome  allies,  and  the  youthful 
and  well-husbanded  natural  strength  of  Israel  was 
able  to  achieve  the  proposed  task.  They  destroyed 
the  kingdom  of  Sihon  of  Hesbon,  and  Israel  re- 
mained settled  in  the  fruitful  region,  and  kept  for 
itself  the  prize  of  war  and  victory. 

Yet  soon  the  fertile  valleys  and  meadows  could 
not  contain  the  ever-increasing  number  of  men  and 
flocks;  they  were  urged  resistlessly  to  cross  the 
Jordan.  There  seemed  to  exist  every  possibility 
of  settling  down  across  the  river.  According  to  all 
accounts  the  Canaanites  were  scattered  in  numerous 
small  isolated  territories  without  internal  connec- 
tions or  mutual  sympathy.  Moreover  their  energy 
had  been  relaxed  by  luxurious  habits,  and  in  valor 
they  could  not  match  the  impetuous  sons  of  the 
desert. 

Judah  was  the  first  to  advance  (Judges  i.  1-20; 
Gen.  xxxviii.  1).  They  crossed  the  Jordan  and  turned 
toward  the  south  where  the  mountain  range  that 
later  bore  the  name  of  Judah,  with  its  fruitful  slopes, 
excited  their  covetousness.  Judah  doubtless  sue- 


20  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

ceeded  in  gaining  a  permanent  foothold  in  this  re- 
gion, but  only  at  the  cost  of  severe  losses  which 
were  made  good  by  the  amalgamation  of  Canaanite, 
Edomite,  and  Arabic  elements ;  but  after  a  hard  and 
long  struggle  "the  interloper"  (Pharez)  became  the 
master  of  "the  first  begotten"  (Zarah)  (Genesis 
xxxviii.  27-30).  In  the  time  of  David,  when  Judah 
stands  in  the  broad  daylight  of  history,  the  Israelitic 
part  of  the  population  is  undisputed  master  of  the 
country,  and  the  latter  throughout  felt  as  Israelitic. 

The  tribes  of  Simeon  and  Levi  made  the  second 
attempt,  which  turned  out  a  complete  failure.  By 
means  of  treason  they  obtained  possession  of  the 
Canaanite  city  of  Shechem,  commanding  Mt.  Eph- 
raim;  but  Israel  turned  shuddering  away  from  the 
nefarious  deed,  and  Simeon  and  Levi  were  van- 
quished by  the  revenge  of  the  Canaanites  (Gen. 
xxxiv.  25-30;  xlix.  5-7).  Levi  as  a  tribe  was  en- 
tirely exterminated,  yet  later  through  a  most  re- 
markable metamorphosis  awoke  to  a  new  life  as  a 
sacerdotal  caste,  and  the  remnants  of  Simeon  hid 
with  the  kindred  tribe  of  Judah  (Judges  i.  3)  by 
which  they  were  absorbed. 

The  house  of  Joseph  undertook  the  third  and 
most  successful  expedition.  Only  Reuben  and  Gad 
continued  to  dwell  in  the  district  east  of  Jordan. 
The  other  seven  tribes  under  the  leadership  of  the 
Ephraimite  Joshua  combined  in  a  common  cam- 
paign against  Middle  and  Northern  Palestine.  They 
gained  a  firm  foothold  in  Gilgal  on  the  other  side 
of  the  Jordan  (Josh.  iv.  and  v.)  and  from  that  po- 


RISE  OF  THE   PEOPLE  OF  ISRAEL.  21 

sition  they  were  able  to  conquer  Jericho  (Josh,  vi.), 
Ai  (Josh,  viii.),  and  Bethel  (Judges  i.  22-25).  Then 
at  last  the  Canaanites  were  aroused  into  a  deter- 
mined and  general  resistance,  but  at  Gibeon  they 
were  another  time  defeated  by  Joshua  (Josh,  x.) 
and  thus  Israel  became  the  master  of  all  Middle 
Palestine.  In  the  north  they  were  again  confronted 
by  a  coalition  of  Canaanites  under  King  Jabin  of 
Hazor;  but  at  Lake  Merom  this  coalition  also  was 
vanquished  by  Joshua. 

It  would  be  erroneous  to  suppose  that  the  whole 
land  of  Palestine,  directly  upon  occupation,  became 
the  undisputed  possession  of  the  Israelites.  In  the 
first  chapter  of  the  Book  of  Judges — one  of  the 
most  important  and  valuable  historical  documents 
extant — we  possess  a  detailed  enumeration  of  all 
the  Canaanites  whom  Israel  "did  not  drive  out." 
From  this  enumeration  it  appears  that  the  best  and 
most  fertile  parts  of  the  country,  and  above  all  the 
majority  of  the  cities — with  their  strong  fortifica- 
tions, at  all  times  impregnable  to  the  rude  military 
art  of  the  Israelites — remained  in  the  possession 
of  the  Canaanites.  Only  the  forest-covered  moun- 
tain ranges  of  Middle  and  Northern  Palestine  were 
occupied  by  Israel;  and  a  very  long  and  obstinate 
work  had  still  to  be  performed  before  the  Canaanite 
population  was  finally  subjugated ;  a  task  partly  ac- 
complished by  force  of  arms  and  the  imposition  of 
tributes,  and  partly  by  peaceable  conquest  and  ab- 
sorption with  the  people  of  Israel. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  Israel  was  indebted  to 


22  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

Moses  and  his  work  for  the  power  with  which 
through  ages  it  struggled  victoriously  in  full  con- 
sciousness of  the  high  aim  that  was  to  be  attained. 
Moses  had  given  to  the  people  a  nationality  and 
therewith  an  inalienable  palladium,  which,  purified 
and  strengthened  by  the  power  of  religion,  could 
not  submit  to  oppression,  but  marched  conquering 
onward.  It  was  owing  to  Moses  alone  that  in  Canaan 
Israel  did  not  become  Canaanites,  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, that  the  Canaanites  were  transformed  into 
Israel. 

Indeed,  the  actual  outcome  of  the  protracted  con- 
flict between  these  two  peoples  and  different  na- 
tionalities, had  not,  to  human  calculations,  by  any 
means  been  absolutely  certain.  In  Canaan  Israel 
passed  from  a  nomadic  to  an  agricultural  life,  and 
might  not  such  a  radical  change  of  life  and  of  its 
conditions  easily  have  brought  about  a  transforma- 
tion of  national  character?  Irrespective  of  the 
superior  culture  and  number  of  the  Canaanites,  Is- 
rael certainly  harbored  within  itself  a  very  danger- 
ous foe,  and  a  living  germ  of  disorganization ; 
namely,  the  stubborn,  stiffnecked  feeling  of  inde- 
pendence and  the  strong  family  instincts,  peculiar 
to  nomads,  that  still  clung  to  the  national  character 
after  the  people  had  abandoned  nomadic  ways  of 
life.  Even  after  the  common  effort  under  Joshua 
had  partly  laid  the  foundations  of  national  organi- 
zation, the  people  were  once  again  broken  up  into 
families  and  tribes,  who  without  concerted  action, 
without  discipline  or  plan,  aimlessly  sought  local- 


RISE  OF  THE   PEOPLE  OF  ISRAEL.  23 

ities  in  which  to  settle.  Tradition,  also,  has  ex- 
pressly handed  down  a  number  of  peculiar  features 
of  this  tribal  and  family  history. 

One  fraction  of  the  tribe  of  Manasseh, — the  fam- 
ilies of  Jair  and  Machir — conquered  the  region  to 
the  east  of  Lake  Galilee  (Num.  xxxii.  39-41 ;  Deut. 
iii.  14-15;  Judg.  x.  3-5) — a  fact  of  the  greatest  im- 
portance, because  thereby  there  was  reestablished  a 
connection  between  the  West-Jordan  country  and 
Gilead,  as  the  Israelites  called  the  East- Jordan  re- 
gion. The  tribe  of  Dan  in  its  struggle  against  the 
powerful  and  warlike  Philistines,  had  failed  to  se- 
cure a  permanent  settlement  in  the  fertile  plain 
along  the  coast  of  the  Mediterranean;  but  Dan 
thereupon  conquered  the  city  of  Laish  in  the  far-off 
north  on  the  slopes  of  Mt.  Hermon,  and  changed 
its  name  into  that  of  Dan  (Judg.  xvii.  and  xviii. ; 
compare  also  i.  34) .  Shamir,  on  Mt.  Ephraim,  was 
settled  by  the  family  of  Tola  of  the  tribe  Issachar 
(Judg.  x.  1-2)  ;  Pirathon,  in  the  same  locality,  by 
the  family  of  Abdon  (Judg.  xii.  13-15);  Aijalon 
by  the  Zebulonite  family  of  Elon  (Judges  xii.  11- 
12).  This  dispersion  might  have  proved  injurious 
and  even  ruinous,  if  over  all  of  them,  each  family 
and  each  tribe,  there  had  not  reigned  supreme  one 
common  idea ;  namely,  Yahveh,  the  God  of  Israel. 

Yahveh  was  the  only  national  principle,  the  only 
bond  that  bound  together  all  Israelites;  in  fact,  as 
Yahveh's  own  people  they  were  a  nation.  Only  ex- 
treme emergency  had  been  able  to  effect  a  national 


24  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

union,  and  that  not  a  general,  but  merely  a  transient 
one. 

After  Joshua's  victories,  the  Canaanites,  through 
the  concentration  and  straining  of  all  their  resources, 
seem  to  have  made  but  one  single  effort  to  overcome 
the  invaders.  Under  the  leadership  of  Sisera  there 
was  effected  a  powerful  coalition  of  Canaanite  kings, 
who  undertook  a  war  of  extermination  against  Is- 
rael. This  extermination  threatened  to  be  realized 
to  the  fullest  extent.  The  Israelites  were  forced 
to  seek  hiding-places  in  the  woods  and  in  the  moun- 
tains where  they  stayed  until  Yahveh  finally  brought 
assistance.  At  this  critical  moment  a  divinely  in- 
spired woman,  the  prophetess  Deborah,  aroused  the 
discouraged  Israelites.  Under  the  leadership  of 
Barak,  of  the  tribe  of  Issachar,  40,000  Israelites 
of  the  tribes  of  Ephraim,  Manasseh,  Benjamin,  Zeb- 
ulun,  Issachar,  and  Naphtali  assembled  together, 
and  now  the  power  of  the  Canaanites  was  unable 
to  resist  the  ardent  impetuosity  of  that  great  host, 
fighting  for  Yahveh.  At  Taanak,  on  the  River 
Kishon,  the  Canaanite  army  was  defeated  and  dis- 
persed, and  Sisera  himself  in  his  flight  was  slain 
by  a  woman  (Judg.  iv.  and  v.).  After  this  battle 
we  never  again  hear  of  resistance  on  the  part  of 
Canaanites. 

Israel  at  last  enjoyed  rest  from  the  Canaanites; 
but  now  there  threatened  still  another  foe.  Kindred 
tribes  looked  with  envy  upon  the  success  of  Israel, 
and  naturally  coveted  their  own  share  of  the  Ca- 
naanite prey.  Thus  Moab  even  advanced  across  the 


RISE  OF  THE   PEOPLE  OF  ISRAEL.  25 

Jordan,  and  at  Jericho,  its  king,  Eglon,  received 
the  homage  and  tribute  of  the  tribe  of  Benjamin, 
until  the  Benjamite  Ehud  stabbed  Eglon  and  freed 
his  people  from  the  foreign  yoke  (Judg.  iii.  12-30). 
Likewise  Ammon  advanced  toward  the  Jordan,  and 
the  hard-pressed  tribe  of  Gad  was  only  saved 
through  Jephthah's  valor  (Judg.  xi.).  At  the  very 
time  when  in  Canaan  Israel  was  becoming  an  agri- 
cultural people,  the  nation  constantly  suffered  from 
the  hostility  and  rapine  of  the  sons  of  the  desert. 
Amalekites,  Midianites,  Ishmaelites,  all  of  them 
sought  to  enrich  themselves  at  the  expense  of  the 
Israelite  husbandman,  and  to  rob  him  of  the  fruits 
of  his  labor. 

The  fact  that  bands  of  Midianites  advanced,  kill- 
ing and  plundering,  as  far  as  Mt.  Tabor,  far  in  the 
north,  in  the  vicinity  of  Lake  Galilee  in  the  West- 
Jordan  region,  is  in  itself  a  telling  proof  of  how 
defenceless  Israel  remained  through  its  unfortunate 
disunion  against  these  predatory  sons  of  the  desert. 

This  invasion  of  Midianites,  moreover,  had  cer- 
tain important  consequences.  From  sheer  arrogance 
and  wantonness  the  Midianites  had  on  Mt.  Tabor 
butchered  a  number  of  prisoners  belonging  to  the 
noble  Manassite  family  of  Abiezer.  Then  Gideon 
or  Jerubbaal,  the  head  of  the  family,  took  to  arms 
to  wreak  vengeance  of  blood  on  the  murderers.  He 
assembled  his  own  household  and  retainers,  to  the 
number  of  300,  and  with  these  went  in  pursuit  of 
the  departed  Midianites,  overtaking  them  far  beyond 
the  Jordan.  He  succeeded  in  dividing  the  forces 


26  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

of  the  enemy,  and  took  prisoners  the  two  Midianite 
kings,  Zebah  and  Zalmunna,  whom  he  ordered  exe- 
cuted to  expiate  the  murder  of  his  brothers.  He 
thereupon  punished  the  inhabitants  of  Succoth  and 
Penuel,  who  had  scornfully  refused  him  their  assis- 
tance in  this  expedition  of  revenge  (Judg.  viii.). 

The  conclusion  of  the  narrative  concerning  Gid- 
eon has,  unfortunately,  been  mutilated.  It  must 
have  related  that  Gideon  actually  founded  a  tribal 
kingdom,  erected  in  his  ancestral  city  of  Ophrah 
a  golden  image  of  Yahveh  and  held  a  regular  court, 
with  a  number  of  female  retainers. 

Thus  from  the  house  of  Joseph  proceeded  the 
first  attempt  at  political  concentration — the  foun- 
dation of  a  dynastic  kingdom;  and  perhaps  from 
this  dynastic  kingdom  there  might  have  been  de- 
veloped a  folkkingship — but  the  time  for  this  had 
not  yet  arrived. 

During  his  lifetime  Gideon  remained  in  undis- 
puted possession  of  power  over  Joseph;  but  after 
his  death  the  harem-regiment — that  constant  curse 
of  all  oriental  dynasties — likewise  effected  the  ruin 
of  his  house.  Abimelech,  the  son  of  a  woman  of 
noble  birth  from  the  city  of  Shechem,  which  was 
at  the  time  a  thoroughly  Canaanite  city,  with  the 
aid  of  his  Shechemite  retainers,  seized  the  supreme 
power,  attacked  Ophrah  and  slew  his  brothers — 
according  to  tradition,  threescore  and  ten  in  number 
— upon  one  stone ;  only  the  youngest  escaped.  This 
event,  naturally,  was  not  of  a  kind  to  cause  king- 


RISE  OF  THE   PEOPLE  OF  ISRAEL.  27 

ship  to  strike  deep  roots  in  the  heart  of  the  people 
of  Israel. 

Abimelech  enjoyed  the  usurped  power  for  only 
three  years,  when  he  became  involved  in  difficulties 
with  the  men  of  Shechem.  He  also  played  the  part 
of  an  Israelite  king  to  the  city  of  Shechem,  which 
scarcely  proved  agreeable  to  the  proud  Canaanite 
nobles.  They  openly  revolted  against  him,  in  con- 
sequence of  which  event  he  conquered  Shechem  and 
razed  it  to  the  ground.  But  fate  overtook  him  at 
Thebez,  upon  which  city  he  had  wished  to  bring  the 
same  ruin.  In  the  act  of  setting  fire  to  a  tower  into 
which  the  inhabitants  of  Thebez  had  fled  for  shelter, 
a  woman  from  the  roof  of  the  structure  hurled  a 
mill-stone  upon  his  head,  and  he  was  killed  (Judg. 
ix.).  Thus  the  first  attempt  to  found  an  Israelitic 
kingdom  ended  in  murder  and  conflagration. 

Again  the  old  anarchy  prevailed,  the  old  lack  of 
cohesion,  which  the  Book  of  Judges  describes  in  the 
following  words :  "In  those  days  there  was  no  king 
in  Israel,  but  every  man  did  that  which  was  right  in 
his  own  eyes"  (Judg.  xvii.  6;  xxi.  25). 

Incidentally,  it  may  be  observed  that  it  is  simply 
impossible  to  give  even  an  approximate  chrono- 
logical statement  and  arrangement  of  the  events  be- 
tween the  exodus  from  Egypt  and  the  reign  of  Saul. 
If  Merenptah  was  the  Pharaoh  of  the  exodus,  we 
may  place  them  in  the  interval  between  1300  to 
about  1030;  the  year  1017  as  the  year  of  Saul's 
death  seems  tolerably  certain. 

The  kingship  of  Gideon  had  vanished  from  sight 


28  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

like  a  will-o'-the-wisp,  and  was  followed  by  utter 
darkness  over  the  land  of  Israel.  This  darkness  is 
only  cleared  up  by  the  subsequent  events  that  brought 
about  the  solid  foundation  of  the  national  kingdom. 
The  national  kingdom  had  become  an  absolute  ne- 
cessity. An  orderly  government,  popular  feeling, 
and  nationality  could  only  be  preserved  through  the 
concentration  in  some  strong  hand  of  all  the  scat- 
tered and,  consequently,  weakened  national  energies. 

The  notion  that  the  creation  of  a  purely  human 
kingship  would  be  a  grievous  sin,  because  an  apos- 
tasy from  Yahveh,  the  only  legitimate  king  of  Is- 
rael, is  but  a  later  assumption  of  Hebrew  theolog- 
ical schools,  and  discoverable  for  the  first  time,  with 
certainty,  in  the  prophet  Hosea.  This  idea  was  en- 
tirely unknown  to  the  olden  time.  The  oldest  sources 
relate  all  these  events  with  a  rejoicing  and  thankful 
spirit.  In  the  rise  of  the  national  kingdom  they 
justly  behold  a  signal  proof  of  the  grace  of  Yahveh, 
a  direct,  divine  interposition  of  Yahveh  for  the  re- 
demption of  his  people. 

On  the  present  occasion,  the  troubles  arose  from 
a  different  direction,  and  were  by  far  more  serious 
than  any  former  one  had  been.  To  the  southwest 
of  Mt.  Ephraim,  toward  the  Mediterranean,  there 
dwelt  the  warlike  and  valiant  race  of  the  Philistines 
— the  hereditary  foe  of  Israel.  Profiting  by  the 
helplessness  of  Israel  the  Philistines  advanced 
toward  the  mountain  and  invaded  the  fertile  plain 
of  Jezreel.  The  first  collision  between  the  bellig- 
erents, at  Ebenezer,  proved  calamitous  to  Israel. 


RISE  OF  THE   PEOPLE  OF  ISRAEL.  29 

Then  Israel,  in  order  to  secure  the  assistance  of 
Yahveh,  brought  out  of  the  temple  at  Shiloh  the  Ark 
of  the  Covenant,  the  ancient  and  sacred  war-symbol 
of  the  house  of  Joseph ;  but  the  second  battle  turned 
out  even  more  disastrous.  Thirty  thousand  Israel- 
ites covered  the  field  of  battle,  the  Ark  of  the  Cov- 
enant was  captured,  and  the  power  of  Joseph  was 
utterly  broken  ( 1  Sam.  iv. ) .  The  Philistines  dragged 
the  Ark  of  the  Covenant  as  a  trophy  of  war  into 
their  own  country,  burned  and  destroyed  the  temple 
at  Shiloh,  and  conquered  the  whole  land  of  Israel  to 
the  bank  of  the  Jordan;  the  people  were  disarmed 
and  held  in  awe  by  Philistine  viceroys  and  Philistine 
strongholds.  Thus  Dagon  had  triumphed  over 
Yahveh. 

But  Yahveh  had  not  forsaken  his  people.  Through 
the  trying  fire  of  extreme  need  and  suffering  he 
wished  to  weld  it  together  to  a  strong  and  united 
nation.  An  aged  seer,  Samuel  by  name,  had  dis- 
covered in  the  Benjamite  Saul  the  man  of  the  period, 
and  had  kindled  in  his  heroic  soul  a  spark  of  patri- 
otic enthusiasm.  Just  at  this  time  also  the  Am- 
monites insolently  insulted  Israel,  and  threatened  the 
city  of  Jabesh  in  Gilead.  Then  Saul  slaughtered 
a  yoke  of  oxen  and  sent  the  bleeding  pieces  through- 
out Israel  with  the  following  message :  "Whosoever 
cometh  not  forth  after  Saul,  so  shall  it  be  done  unto 
his  oxen !"  A  desperate  host  then  assembled  around 
the  bold  leader.  The  enemies  were  taken  by  surprise 
and  scattered  to  the  winds. 

The  people,  exultant  over  this  first  victory  after 


30  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

long  servitude  and  shame,  bore  the  fortunate  general 
in  triumph  to  the  ancient  sacred  spot  of  Gilgal, 
there  to  place  upon  his  head  the  royal  diadem  (1 
Sam.  ix.-xi.). 

Saul  owed  his  crown  to  his  sword,  and  his  whole 
reign  was  one  uninterrupted  strife;  for  the  main 
point  was  to  become  master  in  his  own  land  and 
to  secure  it  against  determined  enemies  and  over- 
weening neighbors.  Saul  at  once  addressed  himself 
to  the  more  difficult  and  important  task  of  throw- 
ing off  the  yoke  of  the  Philistines.  His  son,  Jona- 
than, slew  the  Philistine  governor,  who  held  his 
court  at  Gibeah,  and  at  this  signal  of  revolt  the 
Philistine  armies  again  poured  into  the  insurgent 
land  of  Israel.  Saul  could  only  muster  600  men 
who  had  remained  with  him ;  but  the  lofty  conscious- 
ness of  fighting  for  home  and  hearth,  for  freedom 
and  honor,  imparted  heroic  courage  to  the  men  of 
Israel.  Jonathan,  above  all,  performed  wonders  of 
bravery,  and,  after  a  hot  contest,  victory  declared 
itself  for  the  desperate  little  band  (1  Sam.  xiii.- 
xiv. ) . 

Yet  this  success  was  only  a  transient  one.  Saul 
regarded  it  his  main  task  to  keep  in  constant  readi- 
ness the  fighting  strength  of  his  people,  and  to  this 
end  he  assembled  about  his  person  a  small  standing 
army  made  up  of  3000  of  his  boldest  subjects.  Thus 
the  star  of  King  Saul  arose  at  the  beginning,  bright 
and  brilliant,  but  very  soon  it  was  overcast  by  dark 
clouds. 

An  "evil  spirit   from  God"  suddenly  saddened 


RISE  OF  THE  PEOPLE  OF  ISRAEL.  31 

the  heart  of  the  king.  His  attendants  called  to  his 
side  the  Judean  David  from  Bethlehem,  a  man  of 
tried  courage,  a  skilled  performer  on  the  harp,  a 
knight  and  troubadour  in  one,  who  by  his  pleasant 
art  was  expected  to  dispel  the  melancholy  of  the 
king.  This  new  actor  on  the  stage  of  Israelitic 
history  is,  next  to  Moses,  the  greatest  personage 
of  ancient  Israel.  For  him  was  reserved  the  glory 
of  completing  the  work  of  Moses.  What  Saul  be- 
gan, David  executed  to  its  fullest  extent ;  outwardly 
he  made  Israel  free  and  independent,  and  inwardly 
united.  The  political  and  national  consolidation  of  / 
the  people  of  Israel  is  the  work  of  David. 

David  was  one  of  those  divinely  endowed  natures 
that  win  the  hearts  of  all — a  born  ruler,  to  whom 
all  willingly  submit,  and  serve  with  alacrity.  He 
appears  before  the  king  as  a  highly  attractive  figure, 
graced  with  every  ornament  of  mind  and  body — 
radiant  with  youth,  beauty  and  strength,  and  by 
his  bewitching  amiability  commanding  the  love  of 
all.  At  first  everything  went  well.  Saul,  too,  could 
not  resist  the  magnetism  of  his  person;  he  made 
him  his  armor-bearer,  his  squire  or  "aide,"  and 
while  David  became  devotedly  attached  to  Saul's 
son,  the  king  gave  him  his  daughter  in  marriage. 

This  state  of  harmony,  however,  was  not  destined 
to  last  long.  The  Philistines  again  invaded  the  land, 
and  during  the  war  that  ensued  David  distinguished 
himself  to  such  an  eminent  degree  that  even  the 
glory  of  the  king  was  overshadowed.  At  that  time 
of  history  kings  had  also  to  be  the  bravest  of  their 


32  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

nation,  and  we  therefore  easily  understand  that 
gloomy  jealousy  now  began  to  devour  the  melan- 
choly heart  of  the  suspicious  monarch.  Once  in 
a  fit  of  sullen  dejection  he  even  hurled  a  javelin  at 
his  son-in-law,  and  the  latter  fled  from  his  pres- 
ence. From  that  instant  Saul's  good  genius  forsook 
him  forever,  and  the  close  of  his  reign  exhibits  a 
sad  picture  of  civil  strife  and  external  troubles. 

Despite  the  critical  condition  of  his  kingdom, 
Saul  with  an  armed  retinue  pursued  the  fleeing 
David,  and  finally  drove  him  out  of  the  country. 
The  hounded  fugitive  was  at  last  compelled  to  seek 
refuge  among  the  Philistines — the  enemies  of  Israel. 
Within  a  year  and  four  months  from  that  time,  fate 
had  overtaken  the  Israelitic  king.  The  Philistine 
host  again  combined  against  Israel.  A  decisive 
battle  was  fought  on  Mt.  Gilboa,  in  which  Israel 
was  utterly  routed.  Saul,  beholding  the  death  of 
his  three  sons,  fell  upon  his  own  sword  in  a  fit  of 
despair.  Such  was  the  untoward  end  of  the  first 
king  of  Israel. 

Saul  is  a  truly  tragical  figure.  Although  en- 
dowed with  a  grand  and  noble  disposition,  chival- 
rous and  heroic,  fired  with  ardent  zeal,  yet  after 
all  he  had  achieved  next  to  nothing.  At  his  death 
the  condition  of  things  had  again  become  the  same 
as  at  the  time  of  his  accession.  Israel  lay  prostrate, 
and  the  power  of  the  Philistines  was  greater  and 
firmer  than  ever  before.  Saul's  failures  must  be 
attributed  mainly  to  his  moral  disposition.  He  was 
more  of  a  soldier  than  a  ruler.  He  lacked  the  com- 


RISE  OF  THE   PEOPLE  OF  ISRAEL.  33 

manding  personality,  the  inborn  power  of  leader- 
ship, and  still  more  the  versatile,  statesmanlike  tal- 
ent that  David  possessed.  Saul  had  performed  his 
kingly  duties  honestly.  When  attacked,  he  returned 
blow  for  blow  with  telling  vigor,  but  he  was  far 
from  being  a  creative,  organizing  genius.  Above  all 
he  lacked  to  a  deplorable  extent  all  sense  and  appre- 
ciation of  the  essential  character  and  national  raison 
d'etre  of  the  people  of  Israel.  In  this  latter  respect, 
tradition  has  handed  down  a  clearly  drawn  portrait 
of  Israel's  king. 

Saul  was  well  on  the  way  toward  changing  Israel 
into  a  secular,  military  state,  and  thus  turning  the 
nation  from  its  true  historical  mission.  A  conquer- 
ing kingdom  of  this  world,  perhaps,  might  have 
boasted  a  brief  period  of  transient  splendor  and 
prosperity;  but  it  would  have  disappeared,  without 
leaving  a  trace  of  its  existence,  like  Egypt  and  As- 
syria, Babylonia  and  Persia,  Media  and  Lydia.  King 
Saul  is  certainly  entitled  to  our  deepest  compassion 
and  heart-felt  sympathy,  but  the  fall  of  his  dynasty 
was  fortunate  for  Israel. 

Yet  not  unavenged  was  Saul's  blood  shed  on  the 
heights  of  Gilboa.  His  avenger  and  the  genuine 
performer  of  his  life-work  arose  in  the  Judean 
whom  he  had  attacked  and  persecuted.  Cautious 
conduct  was  now  necessary  on  David's  part.  It  would 
have  been  worse  than  foolhardy  with  only  600  Ju- 
deans  to  open  war  with  the  Philistines.  Above  all 
David  wished  to  save  what  still  might  be  saved. 
He  therefore  caused  himself  to  be  anointed  heredi- 


34  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

tary  king  of  Judah,  under  Philistine  suzerainty; 
while  Abner,  Saul's  general,  assembled  the  scattered 
remnants  of  Saul's  power  in  the  East-Jordan  coun- 
try, and  at  Mahanaim  made  young  Ishbosheth  king, 
who  was  Saul's  only  surviving  son,  and  probably 
not  yet  of  age. 

David  resided  seven  years  in  Hebron,  and  Ish- 
bosheth likewise  seven  in  Mahanaim.  Abner  made 
an  effort  to  subject  David  to  the  scepter  of  Ishbo- 
sheth, but  in  this  attempt  he  was  completely  foiled 
by  the  bravery  of  David's  Judeans.  Shortly  after- 
wards Abner,  the  only  support  of  the  house  of  Saul, 
was  murdered  and  Ishbosheth  himself  fell  a  victim 
to  the  vengeance  of  blood.  At  this  juncture  the 
northern  tribes  agreed  to  confer  upon  David  the 
government  of  the  lands  of  Saul. 

Even  the  first  measure  enacted  by  David  as  suze- 
rain of  Israel  bears  witness  to  his  high  statesmanlike 
genius.  The  city  of  Jebus  remained  still  in  the  hands 
of  the  Canaanites;  David  conquered  this  city  and 
made  it  the  political  capital  of  the  new  kingdom. 
Jebus  was  strongly  fortified  by  its  natural  sur- 
roundings, situated  rather  toward  the  center  of  the 
kingdom,  and  being  independent  of  any  of  the  tribes 
and  raised  above  and  beyond  their  petty  rivalries, 
it  was  better  adapted  for  the  purpose  intended  than 
any  other  city.  As  a  characteristic  contrast  to  this 
policy,  Saul,  even  as  king,  had  quietly  continued  to 
reside  in  his  native  village.  The  founding  of  Jeru- 
salem, as  David  called  his  new  "city  of  David,"  was 
a  fact  of  the  greatest  historical  importance  when  we 


RISE  OF  THE   PEOPLE  OF  ISRAEL.  35 

bear  in  mind  what  Jerusalem  became  to  the  people 
of  Israel  and  later  through  Israel  to  humanity. 

Next  at  last  the  eyes  of  the  Philistines  were 
opened  at  their  former  loyal  vassal,  and  they  en- 
deavored to  choke  at  its  very  birth  the  rising  power 
of  David — but  in  vain.  The  task  upon  which  Saul 
had  been  wrecked  was  accomplished  by  David,  and 
indeed  definitely.  David  for  all  coming  ages  made 
the  return  of  the  Philistines  an  impossibility,  yet, 
on  the  other  hand,  he  did  not  molest  them  in  their 
own  country;  he  did  not  rob  them  of  a  single  inch 
of  land  or  take  a  single  stone  from  their  fortresses. 

David  figures  as  the  greatest  warrior  of  ancient 
Israel.  Victory  ever  remained  faithful  to  him.  He 
humbled  all  the  neighboring  nations  or  conquered 
them,  but  we  must  particularly  lay  stress  upon  the 
fact  that  David  waged  all  his  brilliant  wars  only  in 
order  to  repel  unprovoked  attacks  and  in  defense 
of  the  most  vital  interests  of  his  people.  It  cannot 
be  proved,  or  even  made  to  seem  probable,  that  any 
of  his  wars  were  begun  by  himself  personally.  David 
was  no  greedy  robber,  no  vulgar  swashbuckler. 

Yet  even  all  these  heroic  deeds  do  not  display  the 
grandest  trait  of  his  character.  What  he  achieved 
in  the  inner  moral  sphere  is  of  infinitely  greater 
importance.  Above  all,  his  heart  beat  high  in  unison 
with  the  national  soul  of  Israel.  As  a  true  Israelite 
he  was  a  faithful  servant  and  worshiper  of  Yahveh, 
for  whose  sole  glory  and  trusting  in  whose  aid  he 
wielded  the  sword.  He  wisely  understood  that  a 
king  of  Israel  must  not  only  be  a  brave  warrior, 


36  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

but  that  in  the  Israelitic  state  there  must  also  be 
a  place  for  Yahveh.  In  conformity  with  this  view 
David  wished  within  the  political  center  of  his  king- 
dom to  create  also  an  ideal,  religious  center.  While 
Saul  characteristically  had  allowed  the  Ark  of  the 
Covenant,  the  people's  old-time  halidom,  to  perish 
from  oblivious  neglect,  David's  earliest  concern  was 
to  bring  it  back  from  the  little  village  where  it  re- 
mained forgotten  into  the  new  political  capital  where 
it  would  occupy  a  more  worthy  station,  just  as 
Gideon  once  had  inaugurated  his  tribal  dynasty  by 
the  erection  of  a  sanctuary  in  his  native  city  of 
Ophra.  David  himself  never  undertook  any  im- 
portant action  without  first  consulting  Yahveh 
through  the  priest. 

The  portrait  of  David  is  not  wanting  in  human 
traits  of  the  worse  sort,  and  the  books  of  Samuel 
with  inexorable  love  of  truth  have  not  in  the  least 
tried  to  hide  or  mince  the  matter.  Still,  the  fact 
remains  that  David  stands  forth  as  the  most  lumi- 
nous figure  and  gifted  personality  in  the  whole  his- 
tory of  Israel,  in  greatness  surpassed  only  by  the 
prophet  of  Sinai,  by  Moses,  "the  man  of  God." 

What  David  achieved  for  Israel  cannot  be  rated 
too  high.  Israel  as  a  people,  as  a  political  factor, 
as  a  concrete  power  in  the  world's  history,  as  a  na- 
tion in  the  highest  sense,  is  exclusively  the  work 
of  David ;  and,  although  the  kingdom  which  he  built 
up  through  the  struggles  and  anxieties  of  a  long 
and  active  life,  soon  collapsed;  although  Israel  itself, 
even  a  few  generations  after  his  death,  was  again 


RISE  OF  THE   PEOPLE  OF  ISRAEL.  37 

divided  into  two  halves — still,  the  ideal  unity  long 
survived  the  division  that  had  really  taken  place. 
The  past  grandeur  of  the  Davidian  epoch  still  be- 
came the  haunting  dream  of  the  future  days  of  Is- 
rael; and  it  is  not  through  a  mere  chance  that  the 
wistful  longing,  and  even  the  consolation  of  Israel, 
should  reappear  in  the  form  of  a  returning  ideal 
David,  who  should  combine  all  the  virtues  and  excel- 
lencies of  the  historical  David  without  his  foibles. 

With  David  the  people  of  Israel  had  once  for  all 
reached  the  acme  of  its  national  existence;  his  like 
never  appeared  again.  After  David,  the  history  of 
the  people  of  Israel  changes  into  a  continuous  trag- 
edy, pointedly  illustrating  the  words  of  the  Apostle 
Paul,  that  the  misfortune  of  Israel  enriched  the 
world.  The  pearl  is  a  disease  of  the  shell,  and  kills 
that  which  creates  it,  and  thus,  also,  the  costly  legacy 
bequeathed  by  Israel  to  the  world,  gushed  forth 
from  a  well  of  tears.  The  worldly  grandeur  of 
Israel  collapsed  stone  by  stone,  inch  by  inch,  into 
utter  decay;  but  the  smaller  it  might  appear  out- 
wardly the  greater  it  became  inwardly.  In  the  down- 
fall of  Israel  Yahveh  triumphed,  and  on  the  ruins  of 
Jerusalem,  Jeremiah  proclaimed  the  New  Covenant. 

Israel  died  as  a  political  nation,  but  arose  again 
as  a  religious  sect,  as  a  community  of  the  pious,  the 
Godfearing,  who  alone  would  be  privileged  and 
able  from  out  of  their  midst  to  send  forth  another 
son  of  David,  according  to  the  flesh,  and  spiritually 
the  performer  of  the  work  of  Moses;  greater  than 
David,  greater  even  than  Moses. 


MOSES,  THE  FOUNDER  OF  MONOTHE- 
ISTIC RELIGION. 


AJL,  that  is  great  and  significant  in  humanity  is 
accomplished  by  great  and  significant  per- 
sonalities. To  be  sure  we  have  been  warned  against 
exaggerated  personality  worship  or  hero  worship, 
and  have  been  told  that  the  so-called  great  men  are 
nothing  but  exponents  of  mighty  currents  and  ten- 
dencies of  their  time.  In  this  thought  lies  a  certain 
truth,  in  so  far  as  great  men  do  not  fall  from  heaven 
but  require  some  connecting  links  :  the  time  must  be 
ripe  for  them,  must  to  some  extent  have  need  of 
them,  and  on  closer  inspection  we  will  usually  dis- 
cover that  the  currents  and  tendencies  of  their  con- 
temporaries have  met  them  half  way.  But  that 
these  currents  attained  their  aim,  that  these  tenden- 
cies were  actualized,  is  due  solely  and  simply  to  the 
merit  of  the  great  men  themselves,  and  therefore 
has  earned  for  them  the  gratitude  of  humanity  and 
of  history  which  associates  these  events  with  their 
names. 

What  is  thus  true  in  general  of  all  great  men  and 
significant  human  affairs  is  also  very  especially  true 
of  religion.  For  religion  is  life,  the  most  personal 


MOSES.  39 

life.  It  lives  only  in  personalities  and  through  per- 
sonalities. All  great  and  important  events  in  the 
history  of  religion  are  ineradicably  connected  with 
the  names  of  particularly  favored  personages  who 
appeared  to  their  contemporaries  as  prophets  and 
apostles  of  God,  who  had  himself  taken  possession 
of  them  and  had  become  a  living  power  within 
them. 

Among  these  the  founders  of  religion  naturally 
stand  in  the  first  rank.  They  created  something  en- 
tirely new  and  consciously  strove  to  lead  their  con- 
temporaries on  new  religious  paths  and  to  bring 
them  a  divine  truth  which  had  previously  been  hid- 
den from  them.  And  as  founders  of  world  religions, 
Moses,  Buddha,  Mohammed  and  Jesus  stand  in  the 
first  rank. 

The  earliest  of  these  is  Moses.  To  him  we  stand 
in  a  very  different  relation  from  that  in  which  we 
stand  to  Buddha  or  Mohammed.  The  latter  men 
do  not  concern  us  directly  and  at  best  can  have  for 
us  only  a  scientific  objective  interest.  We  are  much 
more  likely  to  see  in  them  enemies  and  opponents  of 
our  Christian  religion,  its  most  dangerous  rivals  in 
the  competition  for  the  spiritual  dominion  of  the 
world,  while  Moses  and  Jesus  are  in  our  minds  in- 
separably connected.  In  Moses  we  see  a  direct  pred- 
ecessor of  Jesus,  the  point  of  departure  of  the  great 
religious  movement  which  has  found  its  historical 
conclusion  and  spiritual  perfection  in  Jesus.  Suffi- 
cient reason  to  devote  to  this  man  our  particular 
attention,  and  indeed  our  task  of  sketching  him 


40  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

and  his  work  is  an  especially  fascinating  and  allur- 
ing one  which  will  yield  a  rich  reward. 

Unfortunately,  however,  the  undertaking  is  at  the 
same  time  a  very  difficult  one,  and  I  must  express 
myself  with  regard  to  it  openly  and  without  reser- 
vation. The  difficulty  lies  in  the  nature  of  the 
sources  at  our  command.  Buddha  and  Mohammed 
stand  before  us  in  the  full  light  of  history  in  spite 
of  the  great  amount  of  legendary  material  which 
attaches  to  their  personalities.  We  can  not  say  the 
same  of  Moses.  But  have  we  not  the  five  books  of 
Moses?  Could  we  wish  more  or  better  material? 
It  is  only  the  German  Bible  that  knows  anything 
of  the  "Five  Books  of  Moses."  The  Hebrew,  Greek, 
Latin  and  even  the  English  Bibles  do  not  ascribe 
these  books  expressly  and  directly  to  Moses.  And 
in  the  last  century  and  a  half,  science  has  worked 
so  vigorously  and  persistently  on  just  this  so-called 
Pentateuch,  that  we  are  justified  in  speaking  here  of 
positive  results. 

The  Pentateuch  originated  from  the  combination 
of  various  documents,  the  oldest  of  which  is  perhaps 
half  a  millennium  later  than  Moses,  so  that  accord- 
ingly the  earliest  narratives  of  Moses  and  accounts 
of  his  work  which  have  come  down  to  us  are  further 
removed  from  him  in  time  than  we  to-day  are  from 
Luther.  But  the  Pentateuch,  to  be  sure,  contains 
not  only  narratives,  but  laws  as  well.  Is  it  not 
possible  that  one  or  another  of  these  legal  constitu- 
ents proceeded  from  Moses  himself?  In  historical 
tradition  he  is,  of  course,  the  law-giver  par  excel- 


MOSES.  41 

lence\  When  it  comes  to  an  estimate  of  Moses's 
value  for  the  history  of  religion,  I  must  express 
myself  frankly  and  honestly  and  must  also  substan- 
tiate statements  which  will  probably  seem  most  sur- 
prising to  many  of  my  readers. 

It  is  my  firm  conviction  that  the  science  of  Old 
Testament  criticism  of  the  last  generation  not  only 
asserts  but  proves  —  proves  positively  —  that  the 
great  coherent  priestly  code  of  the  Pentateuch  as  it 
has  found  its  characteristic  stamp  in  the  code  of  the 
tabernacle  and  in  the  so-called  third  book  of  Moses 
(Leviticus),  is  quite  late,  and  does  not  belong  at 
the  beginning  of  the  development  as  its  foundation, 
but  at  the  end  as  its  culmination.  That  the  coherent 
code  presented  in  the  so-called  fifth  book  of  Moses 
(Deuteronomy)  originated  in  the  seventh  century 
was  proved  by  De  Wette  as  early  as  1805,  and  this 
knowledge  has  become  the  common  property  of  Old 
Testament  science.  We  may  leave  out  of  considera- 
tion the  three  poetical  pieces  ascribed  to  Moses,  his 
Song  (Deut.  xxxii.  1-43),  his  Blessing  (Deut. 
xxxiii),  and  his  Prayer  (Psalm  xc).  Hence  there 
are  only  a  few  pieces  of  legal  import  which  come 
seriously  into  question.  These  are  the  so-called 
Book  of  the  Covenant  (Ex.  xxi-xxiii)  and  the  Deca- 
logue, or  Decalogues,  and  both  are  to  be  found  in 
the  earliest  original  documents. 

The  Book  of  the  Covenant  is  old  beyond  any 
doubt.  It  is  the  earliest  attempt  in  Israel  at  a  de- 
tailed formulation  of  law,  and  it  has  acquired  a 
particular  significance  by  the  fact  that  it  is  this  very 


42  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

code  which  shows  most  striking  parallels  to  the  fa- 
mous codex,  found  in  1902,  of  the  Babylonian  king 
Hammurabi  who  dates  back  almost  a  thousand  years 
earlier  than  Moses.  But  each  closer  investigation 
of  the  book  of  the  Covenant  makes  it  more  im- 
possible to  assume  that  Moses  himself  was  its  author. 
The  work  and  legislation  of  Moses  were  intended 
for  nomadic  hordes  which  were  yet  to  become  a 
nation  for  the  first  time,  and  in  whom  we  may  not 
assume  a  settled  state  of  civilization  founded  on 
agriculture.  The  whole  legislation  of  the  Cov- 
enant, however,  is  calculated  for  a  settled  agri- 
cultural population,  to  some  extent  also  engaged  in 
commerce  and  living  under  a  sort  of  juridical  ad- 
ministration. In  the  first  place,  the  very  detailed 
regulations  about  goring  cattle  are  significant.  In 
the  Semitic  Orient,  cattle  never  and  nowhere  be- 
long to  nomad  tribes  but  are  exclusively  domestic 
and  farm  animals ;  Semitic  nomads  raise  only  sheep 
and  goats.  Laws  like  those  regarding  injuries  to  field 
and  vineyards  from  unrestrained  cattle  or  the  rav- 
ages of  fire,  or  requiring  that  fields,  vineyards  and 
olive  groves  should  not  be  tilled  the  seventh  year 
but  should  be  left  to  the  poor,  have  not  Sinai  for  a 
background  or  the  deserts  of  Kadesh,  but  the  fertile 
land  of  Palestine.  Then,  too,  when  a  regulation  re- 
quires that  the  doer  of  a  bodily  injury  which  does 
not  prove  fatal  must  pay  the  injured  one  for  the 
time  he  is  bedridden,  and  also  the  cost  of  his  re- 
covery, we  have  a  condition  of  society  in  which  the 
daily  wage  can  be  calculated  in  money,  and  in  which 


MOSES.  43 

professional  physicians  practise  for  money,  which 
could  never  be  the  social  condition  of  a  nomad  people 
even  if  it  were  no  longer  purely  nomad  but  had  al- 
ready advanced  to  the  most  primitive  agricultural 
stages.  The  book  of  the  Covenant  was  certainly 
drawn  up  at  a  comparatively  early  date.  In  it  we 
can  see  the  codification  of  customs  in  practice  in 
the  time  of  the  earliest  kings  in  the  manner  of  the 
oldest  German  W 'eisthumer ;  but  Moses  can  not  have 
given  his  contemporaries  such  a  legislation. 

We  now  come  to  the  Decalogue,  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments, in  which  we  see  the  work  which  belongs 
peculiarly  to  Moses,  and  which  occurs  first  to  our 
minds  when  the  name  of  Moses  is  mentioned.  Be- 
cause of  the  importance  of  the  matter,  I  must  here 
enter  more  into  detail.  It  is  first  of  all  noteworthy 
that  this  Decalogue  has  left  behind  no  traces  what- 
ever in  the  early  and  oldest  literature.  The  earliest 
passage  to  be  taken  into  account  is  in  Hosea  who 
says  of  his  contemporaries  that  they  swear,  lie, 
kill,  steal  and  commit  adultery  (Hosea  iv.  2).  But 
the  prophet  uses  other  words  than  those  in  the  Deca- 
logue, and  furthermore  the  order  of  the  sins  is  en- 
tirely different,  so  that  this  passage  at  least  need 
not  have  reference  to  the  Decalogue. 

Moreover,  it  is  well  known  that  the  Decalogue 
occurs  twice  in  the  Pentateuch  in  different  forms 
(Exodus  xx  and  Deut.  v).  The  first,  for  instance, 
alleges  as  a  reason  for  resting  on  the  Sabbath,  the 
rest  of  God  on  the  seventh  day  after  the  six  days 
employed  in  creating  the  world ;  the  other,  consid- 


44  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

eration  for  servants,  in  order  that  thy  manservant 
and  thy  maidservant  may  rest  as  well  as  thou  (Deut. 
v.  14).  Of  course  this  difficulty  is  not  insurmount- 
able, for  on  two  stone  tablets  we  must  think  of  the 
ten  commandments  as  formulated  in  lapidary  brief- 
ness, perhaps  as  follows : 

"Thou  shalt  have  none  other  gods  before  me. 

"Thou  shalt  not  make  thee  any  image  or  any 
likeness. 

"Thou  shalt  not  misuse  the  name  of  God. 

"Thou  shalt  keep  the  Sabbath  holy. 

"Thou  shalt  honor  father  and  mother." 

But  the  gravest  essential  considerations  arise 
against  the  possibility  that  even  such  a  nucleus  has 
come  down  directly  from  Moses.  The  Sabbath 
command  and  the  image  prohibition  contain  insur- 
mountable difficulties.  The  biblical  celebration  of 
the  Sabbath  consists  everywhere  in  rest  and  cessa- 
tion from  labor.  It  has  therefore  been  designated 
as  a  rest  offering.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact,  such  a 
cessation  from  work  is  actually  possible  only  for 
agriculturists  and  never  for  nomads;  for  the  work 
which  the  nomad  has  to  perform  can  not  be  set  aside 
at  will.  The  flocks  must  be  fed  and  watered,  gath- 
ered together  and  milked  on  Sunday  or  holiday  as 
well  as  on  a  workday.  To  attest  this  fact  I  will  call 
no  less  a  witness  than  Jesus,  who  says  in  the  Gospel 
of  Luke  (xiii.  15)  :  "Thou  hypocrite,  doth  not  each 
one  of  you  on  the  sabbath  loose  his  ox  or  his  ass 
from  the  stall,  and  lead  him  away  to  watering?"  in 
which  the  impossibility  of  carrying  out  the  Sabbath 


MOSES.  45 

command  for  the  stock  raiser  is  directly  admitted. 
It  is  indirectly  admitted  in  the  fact  that  Moham- 
med, who  otherwise  borrowed  everything  from  Ju- 
daism, did  not  adopt  the  Sabbath,  because,  oppor- 
tunist as  he  was,  he  said  to  himself  that  the  insti- 
tution was  not  suited  to  his  Arabians.  In  its  biblical 
sense  the  Sabbath  command  is  absolutely  impossible 
as  a  fundamental  law  of  a  nomadic  people.  At  the 
most  Moses  may  have  arranged  some  sort  of  a  re- 
ligious celebration  for  every  seventh  day.  The  sug- 
gestion which  has  been  lately  raised  that  the  Sab- 
bath in  ancient  Israel  did  not  mean  the  seventh  day 
and  a  rest  day  for  every  week,  but  the  full  moon  in 
opposition  to  the  new  moon  would  overcome  this 
objection,  but  its  foundation  is  very  insecure  and  its 
maintenance  would  develop  immense  difficulties. 

In  the  same  way,  facts  —  undeniable  historical 
facts — make  it  impossible  to  adhere  to  the  image 
prohibition  as  Mosaic  and  as  a  fundamental  com- 
mand of  the  religion  of  Israel.  In  Dan,  where  calf 
worship  was  carried  on  officially  as  in  Bethel,  which 
the  prophets  later  struggled  against  and  denounced, 
a  race  of  priests  officiated  which  were  descended 
from  a  grandson  of  the  founder  Moses;  hence  a 
direct  descendant  of  Moses  became  the  official  priest 
of  the  Golden  Calf!  How  could  that  be  possible 
when  every  child  of  Israel  (modernly  speaking) 
in  the  Sunday  school  must  know  that  Moses  pro- 
nounced as  his  second  commandment  for  Israel, 
"Thou  shalt  not  make  unto  thee  any  graven  image 
or  any  likeness"?  Yes,  a  notorious  idol  has  even 


46  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

been  traced  back  in  all  naivete  to  Moses  himself.  In 
the  temple  at  Jerusalem  at  the  time  of  the  prophet 
Isaiah  there  was  still  a  brazen  serpent  to  which  the 
Children  of  Israel  offered  sacrifices.  Therefore  it 
was  not  merely  an  historical  relic  from  the  years  in 
the  wilderness,  but  a  representation  of  deity,  which 
Moses  was  said  to  have  wrought,  and  which  King 
Hezekiah  caused  to  be  broken  in  pieces  (2  Kings 
xviii.  4).  These  are  undeniable  facts  reported  in 
the  Old  Testament  itself. 

Further  we  must  consider  that  we  have  no  po- 
lemic from  Elijah  and  Elisha  against  the  calves  of 
Dan  and  Bethel.  If  they  showed  zeal  for  the  God 
of  Israel  against  the  Tyrian  Baal,  they  also  showed 
zeal  for  the  golden  calves  as  the  official  form  at 
that  time  of  the  worship  of  God  in  the  kingdom  of 
Israel.  Even  the  prophet  Amos  who  appeared  in 
the  midst  of  Bethel  and  occupied  himself  in  great 
detail  with  the  cult  there,  finds  no  word  of  complaint 
for  the  Golden  Calf  there.  Hosea  who  stigmatized 
that  ancient  and  revered  symbol  by  the  disrespectful 
expression,  "calf,"  was  the  first  to  engage  in  polem- 
ics against  this  and  every  image  and  symbolical  kind 
of  worship,  but  simply  from  reasons  of  good  sense, 
and  without  any  implication  that  it  was  a  great  sin 
which  Moses  had  already  forbidden.  All  of  this 
would  be  absolutely  impossible  if  the  Decalogue  of 
Exodus  xx  had  been  known  to  every  Israelite  as 
a  fundamental  command  of  the  religion  of  Moses 
and  was  generally  current  as  such.  But  if  two  of 


MOSES.  47 

the  ten  commandments  are  essentially  untenable  then 
the  whole  becomes  untenable. 

And  to  make  the  question  still  more  involved,  we 
have  a  second  Decalogue  in  Exodus,  an  entirely 
different  one  which  likewise  was  given  to  Moses  on 
Sinai  and  reads  as  follows:  (Ex.  xxxiv.  14-26)  : 

"Thou  shalt  worship  no  other  god .... 

"Thou  shalt  make  thee  no  molten  gods. 

"The  feast  of  unleavened  bread  shalt  thou  keep.... 

"Every  firstling  is  mine.  .  . . 

"Thou  shalt  observe  the  feast  of  weeks .... 

"Thou  shalt  observe  the  feast  of  ingathering. . . . 

"Thou  shalt  not  offer  the  blood  of  my  sacrifice 
with  leaven; 

"The  fat  of  my  sacrifice  shall  not  remain  until 
the  morning. 

"The  first  of  the  firstfruits  of  thy  land  thou  shalt 
bring. . . . 

"Thou  shalt  not  seethe  a  kid  in  his  mother's 
milk." 

These  are  the  ten  commandments  on  the  basis 
of  which,  according  to  the  oldest  narrators,  the  so- 
called  Yahvists,  the  covenant  on  Sinai  was  con- 
firmed. In  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  two  first  com- 
mandments are  essentially  identical,  it  is  quite  im- 
possible to  refer  both  Decalogues  to  one  original 
form.  This  Decalogue  of  the  Yahvist  redaction 
characteristically  contains  no  ethical  prescriptions 
whatever  except  such  as  pertain  to  the  religious 
service;  and  accordingly  it  finds  the  essence  of  re- 
ligion in  worship.  Our  own  familiar  Decalogue 


48  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

bears  the  relation  to  this  one  that  Amos  bears  to  his 
contemporaries. 

We  must  also  grant  that  the  tradition  that  Moses 
had  made  the  covenant  of  Sinai  on  the  basis  of  ten 
commandments  is  very  old,  but  the  commandments 
themselves  are  missing;  for  even  the  Decalogue  of 
Exodus  xxxiv  can  not  have  been  formulated  by 
Moses  since  it  also  rests  upon  the  assumption  of 
agriculture  and  festivals  founded  upon  agricultural 
customs, — and  if  we  are  honest  Moses  loses  nothing 
by  our  refusing  to  ascribe  to  him  this  Decalogue. 
If  he  had  actually  established  the  religion  of  Israel 
upon  this  foundation  he  would  not  belong  to  the 
greatest  religious  heroes  of  mankind. 

Accordingly,  then,  the  result  of  our  investigation, 
which  may  perhaps  seem  destructive,  is  that  we  have 
no  documents  or  authentic  sayings  of  Moses,  like- 
wise no  accounts  of  him  which  are  even  approxi- 
mately contemporary.  Under  such  circumstances 
can  we  dare  after  all  to  give  a  history  of  Moses  and 
his  work?  But  softly!  If  we  have  no  historical 
documents  in  the  usual  sense  we  still  have  docu- 
ments from  Moses  in  a  higher  sense,  not  written  on 
crumbling  stone  or  moldering  parchment,  but  in  liv- 
ing men,  as  we  might  say  with  the  Apostle  Paul 
(2  Cor.  iii.  3),  "Not  with  ink,  but  with  the  Spirit 
of  the  living  God ;  not  in  tables  of  stone  but  in  fleshy 
tables  of  the  heart." 

Upon  the  character  and  history  of  the  people  of 
Israel  the  work  of  Moses  has  left  such  lasting  and 
unmistakable  traces,  and  tradition  has  retained  for 


MOSES.  49 

us  such  a  great  number  of  highly  significant  un- 
impeachable facts  that  we  need  be  in  no  doubt.  To 
be  sure,  documents  of  this  kind,  not  written  with 
ink,  are  not  always  easy  to  read,  and  I  shall  surely 
not  be  misunderstood  if  I  often  express  myself  with 
a  certain  hesitation ;  but  we  shall  and  can  enter  upon 
our  task  comforted, — yes,  I  flatter  myself,  that  my 
readers  will  feel  even  especial  confidence  in  a  repre- 
sentation of  the  work  of  Moses  given  from  a  stand- 
point which  they  will  probably  consider  very  radical, 
because  they  have  the  impression  that  the  author 
has  carefully  guarded  himself  from  every  incidental 
illusion  and  has  avoided  every  possible  source  of 
error  in  every  way  practicable. 

There  is  an  additional  point  which  lightens  our 
task  with  regard  to  Moses.  This  is  the  peculiar 
double  position  which  he  shares  with  Mohammed 
only  of  all  the  great  founders  of  religions :  namely, 
that  his  is  a  personality  belonging  to  profane  history 
as  well  as  to  the  history  of  religion.  He  not  only 
founded  the  Israelitic  religion  but  he  also  created 
the  Israelitic  nation.  In  his  own  mind  the  two 
sides  of  his  work  could  not  be  separated,  for  in  the 
role  of  prophet  he  exercised  his  political  activity, 
as  we  would  call  it,  in  the  name  of  his  God,  as  His 
representative  with  a  definite  mission.  Of  this 
fact  tradition  leaves  us  in  no  doubt,  and  in  this 
particular  it  has  certainly  drawn  his  likeness  with 
great  accuracy.  But  we  can  consider  historical  facts 
apart  from  their  religious  character  and  motives, 
and  it  is  easier  to  gain  a  picture  of  historical  than 


50  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

of  religious  facts.  For  instance,  we  can  establish 
the  historical  facts  of  the  crusades  without  regard 
to  the  religious  character  and  the  religious  roots  of 
the  movement.  If  we  do  so  we  shall  obtain  only 
a  one-sided  picture  of  them,  nor  can  we  have  a 
complete  and  accurate  picture  until  we  have  estab- 
lished these  historical  facts  objectively.  According 
to  my  firm  conviction  it  is  also  possible  to  establish 
the  historical  facts  of  the  life  and  work  of  Moses 
objectively,  and  this  must  be  our  first  task. 

In  the  pages  of  profane  history  Moses  stands  be- 
fore our  eyes  as  the  liberator  of  his  people  from 
Egyptian  bondage,  arid  as  their  leader  and  ruler  in 
peace  and  war.  The  biblical  accounts  with  regard 
to  the  fate  of  the  fathers  of  Israel  in  pre-Mosaic 
times  permit  of  the  sharpest  critique  and  become  the 
more  brilliantly  verified  according  as  they  are  the 
more  exactly  investigated  and  observed.  I  consider 
it  as  proven  that  Ramses  II,  the  Sesostris  of  the 
Greeks,  whose  mummy  was  found  a  number  of 
years  ago,  was  the  Pharaoh  of  the  oppression,  and 
his  son  and  successor,  Merenptah,  the  Pharaoh  of 
the  exodus.  In  Moses,  the  hero  and  leader  of  this 
expedition,  tradition  sees  a  Hebrew  of  the  tribe  of 
Levi.  And  just  this  fact  is  unquestionable  because 
it  alone  offers  us  the  key  to  one  of  the  must  puzzling 
phenomena  in  the  history  of  Israel. 

It  is  remarkable  that  the  tribe  of  Levi  appears  in 
two  forms  which  have  nothing  in  common  except  the 
name.  The  earliest  tradition  describes  it  as  a  ruth- 
less and  violent  secular  tribe,  who  were  cursed  and 


MOSES.  51 

condemned  to  destruction  by  the  patriarch  because 
of  a  bloody  crime,  and  were  actually  destroyed. 
In  the  later  tradition  the  Levites  appear  as  a  purely 
spiritual  race  of  priests,  who  from  the  beginning 
were  set  aside  for  the  service  of  God.  The  event 
which  resulted  in  the  overthrow  of  the  secular  tribe 
of  Levi  can  have  taken  place  only  when  Israel  came 
into  possession  of  Palestine,  that  is  to  say,  in  the 
time  after  Moses.  This  event  was  the  treacherous 
and  barbarous  capture  of  the  city  of  Shechem, 
which  brought  no  blessing  to  the  wicked  tribe  and 
its  accomplice,  Simeon.  They  succumbed  to  the 
revenge  of  the  Canaanites  when  Israel  solemnly 
separated  from  them  and  left  them  to  expiate  their 
burden  of  sin  alone.  That  tradition  should  of  its 
own  accord  have  made  Moses  out  to  be  a  member 
of  this  cursed  tribe  is  simply  unthinkable,  whereas 
if  he  were  really  a  Levite  the  riddle  is  easily  solved. 
Those  portions  of  the  tribe  of  Levi  which  belonged 
to  the  family  of  Moses  and  which  were  very  closely 
connected  with  him  and  had  placed  themselves  at 
his  disposal,  took  of  course  no  part  in  the  criminal 
undertaking  of  the  rest  and  so  were  not  entangled  in 
the  catastrophe  in  which  it  resulted.  Thus  it  hap- 
pened in  fact  that  only  the  priestly  families  re- 
mained, and  these  could  hardly  have  the  ambition 
to  reestablish  themselves  as  a  secular  tribe. 

This  Hebrew  of  the  tribe  of  Levi,  however,  found 
access  by  a  happy  chance  to  the  civilization  and 
culture  of  Egypt,  and  was  educated  entirely  as 
an  Egyptian.  It  is  certain  that  his  name  cannot  be 


52  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

accounted  for  by  Semitic  derivation,  whereas  in  the 
form  Mesu  it  was  a  purely  Egyptian  name,  which 
can  be  authentically  proved  to  have  been  generally 
current  at  that  time.  Then  too,  Pinehas,  a  tradi- 
tional name  in  the  family  of  Moses,  which  we  can 
not  trace  back  to  any  Semitic  root,  is  a  purely  Egyp- 
tian Penehesu  which  likewise  may  be  authentically 
proved.  According  to  the  biblical  narrative,  Pha- 
raoh's daughter  found  the  child  Moses  in  the  Nile 
under  circumstances  familiar  to  us  all,  and  adopted 
him  as  her  son.  The  non-biblical  accounts  give  her 
name  as  Termuthis,  or  Merris,  and  in  fact  we  can 
point  out  the  two  names  Tmer-en-mut  and  Meri 
among  the  the  female  members  of  the  family  of 
Ramses  II. 

The  biblical  account  touches  but  lightly  on  the 
childhood  and  youth  of  Moses.  It  presents  him  to 
us  at  the  first  as  a  man  and  the  champion  of  his 
people.  This  deficiency  too  has  been  supplied  for 
us  by  non-biblical  literature.  According  to  Josephus 
the  Egyptian  priests  demanded  his  death  when  he 
was  first  brought  before  Pharaoh,  because  a  proph- 
ecy said  that  this  boy  would  one  day  bring  great 
evil  to  Egypt;  but  his  foster  mother  protected  him 
and  bestowed  upon  him  a  careful  education. 

When  Moses  grew  up,  Egypt  was  invaded  by  the 
Ethiopians,  whom  no  one  had  been  able  to  with- 
stand. Then  according  to  the  instruction  of  an 
oracle  Moses  was  placed  at  the  head  of  an  Egyptian 
army  and  performed  his  task  with  wonderful  intelli- 
gence and  power,  won  victory  after  victory,  and 


MOSES.  53 

finally  besieged  the  Ethiopians  in  their  capital  city, 
Meroe.  There  the  Ethiopian  princess,  Tharbis,  fell 
in  love  with  him  and  on  his  promise  to  marry  her 
surrendered  to  him  the  capital  of  the  enemy,  where- 
upon he  returned  in  triumph  to  Egypt.  We  smile 
over  such  stories,  but  the  fact  remains  authentically 
established  that  at  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Ramses 
II  and  at  the  beginning  of  that  of  Merenptah  a 
certain  Mesu  was  the  Egyptian  viceroy  of  Ethiopia, 
"Prince  of  Kush,"  as  he  was  officially  styled.  Even 
in  the  Bible  itself  we  have  a  very  remarkable  and 
puzzling  passage  where  Miriam  and  Aaron  make 
accusations  against  Moses  on  account  of  an  Ethio- 
pian wife  he  had  taken  (Num.  xii.  1).  In  any 
case  the  peculiar  double  position  of  Moses,  Hebrew 
by  birth  but  Egyptian  by  education,  is  to  be  looked 
upon  as  historical,  and  in  this  respect  we  are  invol- 
untarily reminded  of  Arminius,  the  Teutonic  Her- 
mann the  Cheruscan,  who  likewise  entered  into 
Roman  service  and  arose  to  the  dignity  of  a  Roman 
knight,  but  only  in  order  to  learn  from  the  Romans 
how  he  might  free  his  people  from  their  yoke.  The 
inclination  of  his  heart  led  Moses  likewise  to  his 
people;  he  would  rather  be  the  brother  of  these 
despised  slaves  than  live  in  the  enjoyment  of  Egyp- 
tian luxury  and  splendor. 

If  Moses  had  been  born  an  Egyptian  what  could 
have  induced  him  to  place  himself  at  the  head  of  the 
Israelites  with  whom  he  could  not  even  make  him- 
self understood  because  of  the  essential  difference 
between  their  languages?  Perhaps  pity  for  the  op- 


54  THE   CULTURE   OF   ANCINT    ISRAEL. 

pressed,  who  according  to  the  Egyptian  view  were 
no  better  than  the  cattle  which  they  herded?  Or 
injured  ambition  because  he  did  not  rise  rapidly 
enough  in  his  career  and  so  would  rather  be  the  first 
among  the  despised  foreigners  than  to  be  second 
among  the  Egyptians?  Neither  can  Moses  have 
been  a  member  of  the  Semitic  tribes  who  led  a 
nomad  life  around  Sinai  and  with  whom  tradition 
has  brought  him  in  closest  connection.  The  desert 
is  egoistic.  To  but  few  does  it  give  a  scanty  sus- 
tenance, so  that  every  tribe  would  think  well  before 
inviting  strangers  to  the  table  at  which  they  them- 
selves could  hardly  be  satisfied  even  if  they  would 
have  won  additional  strength  and  influence  by  such 
an  increase  in  their  numbers.  In  this  point  too  the 
tradition  holds  its  own  and  every  attempt  to  depart 
from  it  causes  only  entanglement  in  unsolvable  diffi- 
culties. 

But  Moses  was  above  all  a  founder  of  religion, 
and  therefore  it  becomes  of  very  particular  interest 
and  the  highest  possible  value  for  us  to  familiarize 
ourselves  with  the  religious  environment  in  which  he 
developed.  That  the  careful  Egyptian  education 
which  fell  to  his  lot  was  also  a  religious  education, 
may  be  taken  for  granted.  And  the  esoteric  religion 
at  least  of  the  Egypt  of  that  day  stood  upon  a  very 
high  plane.  Its  belief  was  centered  in  a  life  be- 
yond. The  most  important  witness  of  the  religious 
literature  of  Egypt  is  the  so-called  Book  of  the 
Dead  which  treats  of  the  fate  of  the  soul  after 
death.  When  the  soul  escapes  the  fetters  of  the 


MOSES.  55 

body  it  comes  before  the  judgment  of  the  dead 
where  forty-two  judges  examine  its  conduct,  each 
with  regard  to  some  one  particular  sin.  If  these 
judges  declare  the  soul  to  be  pure  it  enters  into  the 
realm  of  light,  it  becomes  God  once  more  and  re- 
turns to  God  from  whom  it  came.  Especially  have 
the  mysteries  of  Osiris  this  cycle  for  their  object, 
and  we  know  definitely  that  in  the  bosom  of  the 
Egyptian  priesthood  monotheistic  speculations  were 
customary,  or  those  with  a  tendency  towards  mono- 
theism. To  be  sure  these  speculations  never  led  to 
a  practical  religious  monotheism  but  at  most  to  a 
philosophical  pantheism.  Heliopolis,  the  biblical  On, 
had  always  been  one  of  the  main  centers  of  the  mys- 
teries of  Osiris;  and  yet  it  must  arouse  our  atten- 
tion when  an  Egyptian  tradition,  handed  down  to 
us  from  Manethos,  says  that  Moses  came  from  the 
circle  of  the  Heliopolitan  priesthood  of  Osiris,  and 
when  biblical  tradition  places  Joseph  in  direct  con- 
nection with  them,  since  Pharaoh  gives  him  to  wife 
Asenath,  the  daughter  of  Poti-phera  priest  of  On 
(Gen.  xli.  45). 

The  attempt  had  even  been  made  in  Egypt  once 
before  to  establish  monotheism  practically  —  not 
through  the  priests,  it  must  be  noted,  but  on  the  part 
of  the  state.  Amenhotep  IV,  the  last  direct  scion 
of  the  renowned  18th  dynasty,  the  so-called  "heretic 
king,"  undertook  to  establish  by  the  power  of  gov- 
ernment the  worship  of  one  God  whom  he  saw 
incarnate  in  the  solar  disk  aten,  hence  a  solar  mono- 
theism, beside  which  all  other  cults  were  to  be  pro- 


56  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

hibited.  That  this  remarkable  man  (who  also  took 
a  fancy  to  have  himself  and  his  family  portrayed  in 
a  repulsively  ugly  fashion),  did  not  attain  his  pur- 
pose, and  that  the  heresy  of  the  heretic  king  died 
with  him,  may  be  taken  for  granted.  Posterity  has 
condemned  him  to  non-existence,  and  his  name  was 
effaced  from  all  inscriptions,  but  his  attempt  re- 
mains noteworthy  for  the  history  of  religion,  and 
there  is  no  doubt  that  Moses  knew  of  these  things 
which  took  place  perhaps  a  hundred  years  before 
his  time.  Thus  by  no  means  did  he  lack  religious 
stimulation  in  Egypt. 

Furthermore  his  must  have  been  a  pronouncedly 
religious  nature,  an  innate  religious  genius,  and  with 
regard  to  this  we  must  take  into  consideration  cer- 
tain influences  of  his  own  people.  According  to 
biblical  tradition  the  work  of  Moses  did  not  fall 
from  heaven  but  had  its  point  of  contact  in  his  own 
nation  and  found  a  prepared  ground;  neither  did 
the  religious  history  of  Israel  originate  with  Moses, 
but  had  its  beginnings  in  an  earlier  time,  closely 
connected  with  the  person  of  the  patriarch  Abra- 
ham. In  this  important  point  too,  it  is  my  firm 
conviction  that  the  biblical  tradition  is  perfectly 
correct ;  namely,  that  we  must  assume  the  patriarchs 
of  the  people  of  Israel  to  have  had  before  Moses 
a  pronounced  religious  character  which  raised  them 
above  related  tribes  and  which  was  a  spiritual  power 
ever  against  the  Egyptians. 

The  decisive  moment  in  Moses's  entire  life  was 
during  his  sojourn  among  the  Midianites  in  the  wil- 


MOSES.  57 

derness  of  Sinai.  There  he  had  become  the  son-in- 
law  of  a  Midianite  priest  to  whom  even  the  Israelitic 
tradition  assigns  a  certain  share  in  the  work  of 
Moses.  Even  the  natives  of  this  Sinai  neighbor- 
hood we  must  not  imagine  as  entirely,  or  even 
half,  wild  bushmen.  On  the  contrary,  Arabia  was 
the  center  of  an  ancient  and  high  civilization,  al- 
though whether  it  really  reached  back  to  the  times 
of  Moses  may  well  be  questioned.  But  at  least  the 
Arabian  borderlands  were  under  the  influence  of 
Egyptian  and  Babylonian  civilization  and  religious 
movements,  since  it  is  well  known  that  Sinai  bears 
the  name  of  the  ancient  Babylonian  moon-god,  Sin. 
Accordingly  here  the  religious  soil  is  not  fallow  land. 
The  biblical  tradition  itself  says  distinctly  that  the 
new  name  Yahveh,  by  which  Moses  designated  the 
God  of  their  fathers,  originated  from  Sinai  and  was 
derived  from  there,  that  even  before  Moses  a  god 
Yahveh  was  worshiped  on  Sinai. 

Here  on  Sinai  took  place  the  event  which  was 
for  Moses  what  John's  baptism  in  the  Jordan  was 
for  Jesus,  and  the  day  of  Damascus  for  the  Apostle 
Paul ;  the  biblical  account  describes  it  as  the  theoph- 
any  of  the  burning  bush  (Ex.  iii.).  We  can  not  ex- 
plain or  analyze  it  but  must  accept  it  as  a  fact — as  the 
phenomena  of  the  religious  life  do  not  upon  the  whole 
admit  of  demonstration  and  mock  every  rational 
explanation,  but  nevertheless  are  realities.  Here 
God  himself  laid  hold  upon  him  and  took  possession 
of  him.  From  this  moment  he  knew  himself  to  be 
called  of  God  as  the  saviour  of  his  people  and  that 


58  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

he  must  plan  his  entire  future  life  in  the  service  of 
this  God.  He  hastened  to  Egypt  in  order  to  call  his 
people  to  freedom  in  the  name  of  the  God  of  their 
fathers  who  had  appeared  to  him  on  Sinai.  And 
here  too  the  religious  motive  glimmers  plainly 
through  the  oldest  account,  for  they  are  to  travel 
in  the  wilderness  in  order  to  celebrate  there  a  great 
festival  for  their  God.  And  the  bold  enterprise  suc- 
ceeded. Even  in  the  most  supreme  extremity  and  in 
the  greatest  dangers  in  the  face  of  the  despairing 
and  discouraged  people  Moses  clung  to  the  God 
who  had  called  him,  and  his  faith  was  not  to  be 
shaken.  There,  as  the  biblical  account  states  briefly 
and  strikingly,  Israel  saw  the  powerful  hand  of 
Yahveh  which  he  had  shown  to  the  Egyptians. 
Then  the  people  feared  the  Lord  and  believed  the 
Lord  and  his  servant  Moses  (Ex.  xiv.  31).  This 
triumphant  moment  made  Israel  into  a  nation  and 
Israel  never  forgot  it.  Here  Israel  recognized  the 
God  of  their  fathers  who  with  a  strong  hand  and  an 
outstretched  arm  had  delivered  his  people  and  had 
led  them  forth  out  of  the  house  of  bondage,  out 
of  the  land  of  Egypt.  Here  too  we  have  a  matter 
of  fact  to  recognize ;  the  deliverance  from  Egyptian 
bondage  must  have  been  effected  by  an  extraordi- 
nary event  in  which  those  who  experienced  it  could 
see  nothing  but  the  direct  personal  intervention  of 
God  himself. 

At  this  point,  very  involved  questions  begin  to 
arise  for  the  historian  which  I  will  at  least  indicate 
briefly.  It  is  well  known  that  the  mountain  where 


MOSES.  59 

the  law  was  given  to  Moses  is  sometimes  called 
Sinai  and  sometimes  Horeb.  Are  these  only  two 
different  names  or  do  they  indicate  two  different 
mountains?  And  where  may  this  Sinai,  or  Horeb, 
be  found  ?  Besides  it  is  still  maintained  on  reasons 
not  to  be  despised,  that  the  oldest  narrative  makes 
no  mention  whatever  of  this  digression  by  way  of 
Sinai,  but  had  the  people  of  Israel  from  the  be- 
ginning wander  directly  to  Kadesh.  These  are  ques- 
tions which  may  never  be  answered  with  certainty 
and  which  need  not  occupy  us  here  any  further. 
With  Kadesh,  surnamed  Kadesh  Barnea  in  distinc- 
tion from  other  places  of  the  same  name  and  to-day 
the  oasis  Ain  Qudes  at  the  southwest  extremity  of 
the  Plateau  of  Azazime,  we  have  absolutely  firm 
ground  beneath  our  feet.  Kadesh  is  pointed  out  by 
tradition  so  consistently  and  so  positively  as  the 
stopping-place  of  Israel  after  the  exodus  and  as  the 
scene  of  Moses's  organizing  and  administrative  ac- 
tivity, that  any  doubt  of  this  fact  would  only  draw 
a  smile  from  a  methodically  trained  historian.  Now 
we  shall  advance  to  the  investigation  of  his  work. 
However,  there  are  two  methodological  consid- 
erations to  be  disposed  of  first.  The  man  who 
wishes  to  influence  his  times  and  to  direct  them  into 
new  paths,  must  stand  above  them.  Therefore  even 
when  we  have  become  acquainted  with  the  religious 
plane  of  his  time  we  have  not  yet  familiarized  our- 
selves with  his  personal  religious  consciousness,  for 
genius  is  an  absolutely  incommensurable  quantity, 
and  so  likewise  is  religious  genius.  Furthermore  it 


60  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

is  a  matter  of  experience  that  after  religious  move- 
ments have  entered  into  life  they  usually  forfeit 
their  original  freshness  and  purity  so  that  they  be- 
come secularized  and  ossified.  Supposing  that  we 
did  not  have  the  four  gospels,  or  that  Luther's 
writings  were  lost,  who  would  be  able  to  construct 
the  Gospel  of  Jesus  in  its  entire  purity  and  splendor 
from  the  faith  and  life  of  the  Christian  communi- 
ties of  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century  ?  Or  who,  by 
considering  the  condition  of  the  Lutheran  church 
at  the  time  of  the  Protestant  scholasticism  or  the 
writings  of  Calovius  and  Quenstedt,  could  imagine 
that  Luther  had  composed  such  a  precious  booklet 
as  his  "Freedom  of  the  Christian"  ?  This  privilege, 
however,  we  must  grant  also  to  Moses,  and  the  more 
since  we  possess  actually  no  documents  by  him  or 
about  him.  Yes,  even  the  fact  that  we  can  not 
positively  prove  the  existence  of  definite  laws  or 
even  positively  prove  their  non-existence  proves 
nothing  against  Moses.  As  Jesus  said  to  his  dis- 
ciples (John  xvi.  12)  :  "I  have  yet  many  things  to 
say  unto  you,  but  you  can  not  bear  them  now,"  so 
Moses  too  may  have  thought,  and  I  am  firmly  con- 
vinced that  such  is  the  fact.  I  might  make  the 
statement  that  Moses  shows  himself  to  be  a  genius 
in  pedagogy  since  he  would  not  take  the  second  step 
before  the  first,  and  promoted  his  work  most  em- 
phatically by  that  which  he  did  not  give  his  people. 
He  gave  them  no  superfluous  ballast  but  only  what 
they  could  grasp  and  what  they  needed ;  not  philo- 


MOSES.  61 

sophical  speculations,  nor  dogmatic  instruction,  but 
life,  the  most  vital  life,  religious  life,  moral  life. 

I  will  select  two  important  points  for  the  ex- 
planation of  what  I  mean  by  the  two  methodological 
considerations.  It  may  have  offended  many  of  my 
readers  when  I  was  obliged  to  declare  that  Moses 
could  not  have  enacted  a  law  prohibiting  images 
and  have  made  it  a  foundation  stone  of  his  religion ; 
but  does  this  prove,  or  do  I  mean  by  it  to  say,  that 
Moses  was  a  worshiper  of  images  and  thought  it 
right  and  praiseworthy  to  worship  God  in  images? 
The  only  object  relating  to  worship  which  we  can 
refer  back  to  him  with  certainty  is  the  holy  Ark, 
a  pure  symbol  which  never  misled  the  people  to  any 
idolatrous  misuse;  and  at  the  same  time  the  tribes 
and  races  in  the  midst  of  which  Israel  lived  at  the 
time  of  Moses  were  not  idol  worshipers  in  this 
sense,  but  they  too  had  only  religious  symbols;  so 
that  Moses  had  no  practical  occasion  for  such  a  com- 
mand, whereas  he  himself  acted  according  to  this 
knowledge,  and  his  work  lay  entirely  in  this  direc- 
tion. 

Now  for  the  chief  central  question  with  regard  to 
monotheism.  That  Israel  did  not  possess  a  pure, 
clearly  conceived  monotheism  for  centuries  after 
Moses,  that  in  the  eyes  of  Israel  Yahveh  was  not  the 
one  God  in  heaven  and  upon  earth,  but  that  they  saw 
realities  also  in  the  other  gods,  is  absolutely  certain. 
But  what  does  this  prove  in  regard  to  Moses?  Can 
not  Moses  personally  have  held  to  a  pure  mono- 
theism ?  Who  will  decide  a  priori  the  point  beyond 


62  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

which  genius  may  not  pass  ?  Must  Moses  have  con- 
fessed a  religious  perception  inferior  to  that  of  the 
author  of  the  ancient  narrative  of  paradise  and  the 
fall  of  man,  whose  monotheism  indeed  leaves  noth- 
ing to  be  desired?  Could  not  Moses  be  content 
with  what  he  actually  accomplished,  to  bid  Israel 
to  worship  its  own  God  only  and  to  forbid  it  to 
serve  any  other  gods  besides?  If  Israel  was  actually 
convinced  that  it  had  only  its  one  God  to  serve,  who 
laid  claim  upon  it  as  his  possession  alone,  and  wished 
to  be  everything  to  it,  that  would  be  practically  much 
more  valuable  than  any  theoretical  doctrine  about 
the  nature  of  God,  and  Moses  could  confidently 
leave  the  rest  to  God  and  time. 

So  much  is  made  nowadays  of  monotheistic  cur- 
rents in  the  religions  of  ancient  civilizations.  But 
however  great  we  may  assume  the  influence  of  the 
Egyptian  esoteric  doctrine  upon  Moses  to  have  been, 
even  if  a  pure  monotheism  was  taught  in  these 
mysteries,  still  to  Moses  belongs  the  enormous  merit 
that  what  was  whispered  about  among  the  initiated 
in  Egypt  was  now  preached  from  the  house  tops 
and  made  more  useful  to  humanity,  and  especially 
that  he  had  drawn  the  religious  consequences  there- 
from. These  same  Egyptian  priests  who  in  their 
esoteric  teachings  gave  themselves  up  to  the  most 
profound  speculations,  prayed  in  public  with  the 
most  earnest  air  of  solemnity  to  cats  and  ibises, 
crocodiles  and  the  "holy  ox"  as  Theodore  Momm- 
sen  translates  the  "Apis,"  and  rendered  to  them  di- 
vine honors;  but  a  purely  theoretical  monotheism 


MOSES.  63 

which  exists  in  a  brotherly  fashion  side  by  side  with 
the  grossest  practical  idolatry,  is  religiously  not 
worth  a  farthing.  In  this  respect  Moses  accom- 
plished a  sweeping  reform  and  performed  a  com- 
plete task:  such  a  double  entry  method  of  book- 
keeping was  impossible  in  the  religion  of  Moses. 
In  all  religions  there  have  been  monotheistic  tenden- 
cies, currents  and  attempts,  but  only  in  the  religion 
of  Israel  had  monotheism  become  a  power,  and 
indeed  a  power  determining  the  entire  religion ;  and 
this  is  the  work  and  merit  of  Moses.  Nor  did  he 
hesitate  to  shed  blood,  as  is  shown  by  that  remark- 
able story  attested  by  the  oldest  tradition,  in  which 
he  enlisted  the  tribe  of  Levi  to  aid  in  putting  down 
a  religious  rebellion  (Ex.  xxxii.  26  fr*.,  compare 
Deut.  xxxiii.  8  f . ) .  When  Saul  caused  all  the  wiz- 
ards and  those  who  had  familiar  spirits  to  be  hunted 
out  and  executed  (1  Sam.  xxviii.  3  and  9),  he  pro- 
ceeded entirely  in  the  spirit  of  the  zealous  God  of 
Moses  who  permitted  none  other  to  rule  beside  him- 
self. And  this  enormous  energy  which  supplanted 
all  rivals  making  it  impossible  for  them  to  exist 
side  by  side  with  himself,  the  God  of  Moses  mani- 
fested also  in  the  spiritual  realm.  Israel  is  the  only 
nation  of  which  we  have  knowledge,  that  has  never 
had  a  mythology,  that  never  differentiated  divinity 
according  to  sex — the  concept  "goddess"  is  so  ab- 
solutely inconceivable  to  the  Israelites  that  the  He- 
brew language  never  attempted  to  form  the  word 
"goddess."  This  is  a  miracle  performed  by  Moses 
which  is  greater  and  more  incomprehensible  than 


64  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

the  greatest  and  most  incomprehensible  which  tra- 
dition has  ascribed  to  him.  A  man  who  has  exer- 
cised such  an  enormous  influence  on  the  entire 
thought  and  sensibility  of  his  people  and  has  mod- 
elled it  so  completely  according  to  his  own  personal 
higher  knowledge,  such  a  one  truly  belongs  to  the 
greatest  spiritual  heroes  of  humanity. 

We  have  repeatedly  called  attention  to  the  fact 
that  Moses  aimed  first  of  all  to  awaken  religious  life. 
Especially  significant  for  this  and  of  definitive  im- 
portance for  all  later  time  is  the  form  of  his  religious 
foundation.  Yahveh  alone  Israel's  God,  and  Israel 
Yahveh's  people, — this  is  perhaps  the  shortest  for- 
mula to  which  we  can  reduce  the  fundamental  idea 
of  Moses.  But  how  came  this  relation  to  exist? 
All  tradition  united  in  agreeing  that  in  its  form 
the  peculiar  establishment  of  the  religion  of  Israel 
consisted  of  a  covenant  between  Yahveh  and  Israel, 
made  through  the  intervention  of  Moses.  By  this 
means  alone  was  this  relation  lifted  out  of  the  realm 
of  nature  into  that  of  the  moral  decision  of  the  will. 
This  covenant  was  grounded  upon  experience  of  the 
power  of  Yahveh.  He  had  made  real  that  which 
appeared  impossible,  had  freed  Israel  from  the  bond- 
age of  Egypt,  had  therefore  shown  himself  more 
mighty  than  even  powerful  Egypt  with  all  its  many 
gods,  and  had  also  given  further  proof  of  his 
power  to  help.  So  the  God  to  whom  Israel  in  this 
covenant  had  vowed  herself  by  a  free  act  of  will, 
was  not  an  abstraction,  not  an  unyielding  destiny 
but  the  personal  living  God  of  history;  the  relation 


MOSES.  65 

to  him  was  a  personal  ethical  relation  which  as  it 
was  entered  upon  voluntarily  could  also  voluntarily 
be  broken.  Whether  Moses  himself  had  already 
drawn  this  conclusion,  and  had  it  in  mind,  we  know 
not.  Later  it  gave  the  prophets  a  basis  for  their 
ethical  preaching  and  their  deepening  of  the  relig- 
ious relation. 

That  this  relation  of  Israel  to  Yahveh  was  not 
purely  theoretical  but  also  manifested  itself  in  a 
practical  manner  may  be  taken  for  granted.  Its 
official  manifestation,  so  to  speak,  was  to  be  found 
in  the  religious  worship.  That  Moses  had  regulated 
the  religious  service  and  standards  for  the  worship 
of  Yahveh  is  a  matter  of  course.  To  be  sure  we 
can  not  reconstruct  exactly  this  Mosaic  order  of 
service  in  detail,  but  we  must  assume  that  Moses 
inspired  a  new  spirit  into  the  worship  which  made 
it  possible  for  it  to  keep  the  most  important  heathen 
abominations  at  a  distance.  Among  the  nations  in 
the  vicinity  of  Israel  the  customs  of  infant  sacrifice 
and  religious  unchastity  prevailed.  These  were  pro- 
scribed by  the  religion  of  Israel  and  wherever  they 
crept  in  were  recognized  at  once  as  poison  drops 
foreign  to  its  blood. 

Furthermore,  the  relation  of  Israel  to  Yahveh 
manifested  itself  in  a  moral  life,  according  to  the 
requirements  of  this  God.  Here  we  have  the  pecu- 
liar center  of  the  activity  of  Moses  whom  tradition 
describes  before  all  as  the  judge  and  organizer  of 
his  people.  And  right  here  has  the  consequence  of 
his  activity  been  visible  and  significant.  In  fact 


66  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

Israel  stood  far  higher  morally  than  the  neighboring 
peoples.  It  must  have  had  a  particularly  pronounced 
notion  of  right  and  wrong,  and  the  sphere  of  morals 
in  a  most  special  sense  was  peculiarly  Israel's  honor 
and  renown.  From  the  beginning  Israel  had  ab- 
horred unchastity  in  a  manner  that  we  do  not  find 
to  be  the  case  with  other  Semites.  All  of  this  is 
due  to  Moses,  who  silently  and  unobtrusively  or- 
ganized his  people  in  Kadesh,  moralizing,  guiding, 
and  sowing  noble  seeds,  and  who  educated  them 
religiously  in  the  sense  and  spirit  of  the  Decalogue, 
even  if  he  did  not  himself  formulate  it,  and  so  made 
it  possible  for  them  to  become  the  nation  of  religion 
and  in  time  to  bring  forth  the  greatest  of  all. 

It  is  most  probable  that  Moses  also  died  in  Ka- 
desh. According  to  all  indications  Israel's  stop 
there  must  have  been  a  pretty  long  one,  and  it  is 
an  essential  feature  of  the  Israelitic  tradition  that 
neither  Moses  nor  any  of  those  who  came  out  of 
Egypt  was  permitted  to  tread  the  promised  land; 
and  this  is  of  greater  significance  if  we  consider 
that  we  are  dealing  with  a  distance  which  under  nor- 
mal conditions  could  have  been  easily  passed  in  a 
fortnight.  Of  special  importance  for  this  question, 
however,  is  the  explicit  statement  that  nobody  knows 
where  Moses's  grave  is  "unto  this  day"  (Deut. 
xxxiv.  6).  When  we  consider  what  an  important 
part  the  grave,  and  especially  the  grave  of  a  hero, 
played  in  the  conception  of  ancient  Israel,  we  must 
declare  it  to  be  absolutely  unthinkable  that  the  grave 
of  Moses  should  have  remained  unknown  if  he  had 


MOSES.  67 

died  and  had  found  his  last  resting  place  in  a  spot 
which  Israel  considered  as  belonging  to  its  domain. 
But  we  must  look  upon  this  circumstance  too  as 
providential,  for  if  the  grave  of  Moses  had  been 
known,  there  is  no  doubt  but  a  personal  cult  would 
have  been  connected  with  it  which  might  have  had 
evil  consequences  for  the  religion  he  founded.  This 
was  not  to  be.  He  was  to  live  on  only  in  his  work. 
There  is  a  beautiful  Jewish  legend  about  the  death 
of  Moses.  It  is  possible  to  translate  the  fifth  verse 
in  the  last  chapter  of  Deuteronomy  relating  to  his 
death,  "So  Moses,  the  servant  of  the  Lord,  died 
there  at  the  mouth  of  Yahveh."  Therefore  the 
Jewish  legend  tells  how  in  the  last  hour  of  Moses's 
life  God  fulfilled  his  ardent  wish  to  behold  His 
face,  which  in  life  He  was  obliged  to  refuse  him 
(Ex.  xxxiii.  18-23)  and  so  Moses  died  at  the  mouth 
of  God  who  by  a  kiss  took  to  Himself  the  soul  of 
his  faithful  and  trusted  servant.  A  deep  meaning 
lies  in  this  story,  for  verily  did  Moses  receive  the 
consecration  kiss  of  deity.  Whoso  recognizes  in 
Jesus  Christ  the  end  and  turning  point  in  the  history 
of  humanity  must  also  confess  that  before  him  no 
greater  mortal  trod  this  earth,  and  that  to  no  second 
mortal  does  humanity  owe  more  than  to  Moses,  the 
man  of  God.  The  foundation  of  what  in  Jesus 
Christ  has  found  its  conclusion  and  its  perfection, 
was  laid  by  Moses,  since  he  was  the  first  to  give  to 
the  world  clearly  and  consciously  as  the  foundation 
and  basic  principle  of  all  religious  life,  the  faith  in 
the  one,  living,  personal,  holy  God. 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  CHILDREN  IN  AN- 
CIENT ISRAEL. 

FROM  the  point  of  view  of  race  psychology 
there  is  scarcely  a  more  interesting  or  more 
profitable  study  than  the  examination  of  the  way 
in  which  the  various  nations  educate  their  children. 
Since  education  aims  at  the  development  of  children 
into  useful  and  independent  members  of  human 
society  and  at  giving  them  whatever  they  may  some- 
time need  in  order  to  fill  their  place  in  life  and  to 
meet  its  demands,  we  can  derive  from  the  nature  of 
their  system  of  education  perfectly  reliable  infer- 
ences regarding  the  views  of  life  cherished  by  the 
educators  and  the  ideal  of  man  that  hovered  before 
them.  And  so  from  the  beginning  special  interest 
is  assured  for  the  question,  what  a  people  of  such 
importance  for  mankind  as  ancient  Israel  thought 
about  the  education  of  children  and  how  they  ap- 
plied it. 

True,  what  the  Old  Testament  has  to  say  directly 
about  education  is  very  scanty,  but  the  subject  itself 
is  enough  to  spur  us  to  further  investigation.  For 
in  order  to  understand  rightly  and  to  estimate  prop- 
erly those  scant  direct  utterances  about  children  and 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  CHILDREN  IN  ISRAEL.       69 

education,  one  must  needs  have  a  clear  conception 
of  the  views  of  ancient  Israel  regarding  the  family 
and  family  life,  and  accordingly  we  must  include 
also  the  main  points  of  this  latter  important  subject 
within  the  scope  of  our  immediate  consideration. 
In  this  study  I  shall  restrict  myself  to  the  canonical 
books  of  the  Old  Testament,  claiming  outside  that 
sphere  only  the  right  to  be  permitted  to  examine 
and  use  Jesus  Sirach  (Ecclesiasticus).  For  although 
the  Jews  never  included  Jesus  Sirach  among  the 
canonical  books — for  reasons  which  it  would  lead 
too  far  to  explain:  not  indeed  from  lack  of  appre- 
ciation or  because  it  was  considered  unworthy  of 
such  an  honor — yet  it  belongs  in  the  period  of  the 
Old  Testament  literature.  It  was  composed  fully  a 
generation  earlier  than  the  book  of  Daniel,  which 
has  been  accepted  into  the  canon,  and  is  for  us  the 
most  classic  witness  concerning  the  opinions  of 
Judaism  in  the  year  200  B.  C.  I  shall  also  take 
the  liberty  of  referring  on  occasion  to  the  book  of 
Tobias,  which  was  written  about  the  same  time  as 
the  book  of  Esther. 

Matrimony  and  family  life  are  regarded  in  an- 
cient Israel  as  unqualifiedly  the  normal,  divinely 
established  and  prescribed  state.  On  the  other  hand, 
to  estimate  voluntary  abstinence  from  matrimony  as 
an  especial  merit,  and  to  ascribe  to  it  a  higher  degree 
of  divine  perfection  and  even  of  holiness,  was  far 
from  the  thought  of  any  one  in  ancient  Israel.  The 
saying :  "The  Israelite  who  does  not  take  a  wife  is  not 
to  be  regarded  as  a  man,"  is  indeed  found  only  in 


70  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

the  Talmud,  but  certainly  expresses  the  views  of 
ancient  Israel.  "He  who  has  found  a  wife  has 
found  a  treasure  and  won  favor  from  God,"  and 
"House  and  havings  are  inherited  from  one's  par- 
ents, but  a  loving  wife  comes  from  God,"  are  two 
among  the  Proverbs  of  Solomon,  xviii.  22;  xix.  14. 
Since  matrimony  is  instituted  in  Paradise  by  God 
himself,  it  assumes  a  decidedly  religious  value. 
"God  himself  was  the  witness  of  the  vows  between 
thee  and  the  wife  of  thy  youth,"  says  the  prophet 
Malachi  with  touching  beauty,  ii.  14;  and  the  faith- 
less wife  is  branded,  according  to  Proverbs  ii.  17, 
as  one  who  has  "forgotten  her  vow  to  the  Lord." 
In  the  Proverbs  of  Rabbi  Eliezer  this  thought  is 
expressed  very  ingeniously  and  drastically  in  that 
fashion  so  popular  with  Orientals,  a  play  upon  words 
and  letters.  Man  is  in  Hebrew  E^N  (w/&),  while 
woman  is  HEX  (ishshdh).  Now  these  two  words 
have  two  consonants  in  common  x  and  v,  to  which 
there  is  added  in  the  word  for  man  a  »,  and  in  the 
word  for  woman  a  n;  but  these  two  letters  taken 
together  jv  constitute  the  shortest  form  of  the 
most  holy  name  of  God  which  it  was  forbidden  to 
utter,  while  the  two  common  consonants  written 
and  read  together  give  the  word  rx  (esh),  meaning 
fire.  Now  the  Proverbs  of  Rabbi  Eliezer  have  it: 
God  himself  has  placed  his  name  in  the  midst  of 
the  names  of  man  and  wife;  if  they  hold  fast  to 
him  he  will  himself  dwell  in  the  midst  of  them,  but 
if  they  lose  his  most  holy  name  there  is  left  only  fire ; 
that  is,  a  marriage  where  God  is  a  party  to  the  union 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  CHILDREN  IN  ISRAEL.       71 

is  heaven  on  earth,  but  a  marriage  where  God  is  not, 
which  is  not  entered  upon  in  his  name  and  has  not  the 
religious  basis,  is  a  hell  on  earth.  One  can  scarcely 
imagine  a  more  poetical  and  winning  characteriza- 
tion of  such  a  marriage  formed  with  the  blessing 
of  God  than  that  given  in  the  128th  Psalm :  "Blessed 
is  every  man  that  feareth  the  Lord,  that  walketh  in 
his  ways.  Thou  shalt  eat  from  the  labor  of  thine 
hands.  Happy  shalt  thou  be  and  it  shall  be  well 
with  thee !  Thy  wife  shall  be  a  fruitful  vine  in  the 
innermost  parts  of  thine  house;  they  children  like 
young  olive  plants  round  about  thy  table.  Behold, 
thus  shall  the  man  be  blest  that  feareth  the  Lord !" 
(Ps.  cxxviii.  1-4.) 

Let  us  now  consider  how  such  a  marriage  was 
brought  about  in  ancient  Israel.  First  of  all  we 
have  to  prove  that  opportunity  was  given  the  young 
people  to  get  acquainted  and  to  found  a  union  upon 
personal  attraction  and  mutual  love,  for  even  girls 
moved  with  freedom  in  public  life.  Indeed  they 
were  entrusted  with  all  sorts  of  tasks  which  neces- 
sarily brought  them  into  contact  with  young  men: 
they  had  to  fetch  water,  pasture  the  herds,  and 
guard  the  vineyards;  furthermore  it  is  known  that 
they  went  out  to  meet  the  returning  victors  in  war 
and  welcomed  them  with  dance  and  song. 

As  to  the  circle  from  which  the  Israelite  selected 
his  life's  companion  nothing  is  definitely  prescribed. 
In  the  older  times  at  least  the  choice  is  regarded  as 
unrestricted.  Esau  brings  home  to  his  parents  highly 
unwelcome  daughters-in-law  from  a  foreign  race, 


72  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

and  when  Samson  proposes  to  marry  a  Philistine 
woman  his  parents  are  not  exactly  pleased  with  the 
plan,  but  they  do  not  regard  it  as  anything  wrong 
and  they  themselves  conduct  the  suit  for  the  hand  of 
their  son's  chosen  bride  when  they  find  that  he  in- 
sists on  his  desire.  But  this  was  not  indeed  the 
rule;  on  the  contrary,  a  man  sought  his  wife  by 
preference  in  his  immediate  circle,  that  is,  in  his 
own  family.  Thus  Laban  says  plainly  to  his  nephew 
Jacob,  when  the  latter  asks  for  Rachel  to  wife :  "It 
is  better  that  I  give  her  to  thee  than  to  a  stranger/' 
Gen.  xxix.  19.  And  when  Samson  wishes  to  marry 
the  Philistine  woman,  his  father  says  to  him:  "Is 
there  forsooth  among  the  daughters  of  our  kin  folk 
and  in  our  own  family  no  woman,  that  thou  wilt 
take  the  Philistine  woman  to  wife?"  (Judg.  xiv.  3). 
Cousins  of  opposite  sex  seem  especially  to  have 
been  regarded  as  predestined  to  betrothal,  since  the 
language  calls  them  expressly  "lover"  and  "sweet- 
heart," TH  and  nm 

This  is  based  upon  the  old  notions  which  regarded 
the  family  distinctly  as  an  ecclesiastical  and  legal 
unit,  especially  in  matters  of  the  law  of  property. 
From  this  point  of  view,  therefore,  the  contraction 
of  the  marriage  bond  was  not  the  establishment  of 
a  new  family,  but  the  expansion  and  perpetuation 
of  the  family  of  the  father,  for  which  reason  it  was 
the  rule  that  the  married  son  remained  in  the  house- 
hold of  his  father.  If  a  young  man  had  deter- 
mined to  enter  into  matrimony  and  made  his  choice 
either  at  the  dictate  of  his  affections  or  in  accord- 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  CHILDREN  IN  ISRAEL.       73 

ance  with  the  wish  of  his  father,  or  on  some  one's 
recommendation,  then  his  father  or  some  confiden- 
tial friend  sued  for  the  maiden  at  the  hand  of  her 
father  or  her  brother :  it  was  not  customary  for  the 
wooer  to  conduct  his  suit  in  person. 

And  here  we  must  admit  that  of  the  various  forms 
of  marriage  contract  enumerated  and  classified  by 
ethnographists  there  existed  in  ancient  Israel  only 
the  form  of  the  so-called  marriage  sale.  If  the 
father  of  the  maiden  had  given  his  general  con- 
sent, it  then  became  necessary  to  agree  on  the  pur- 
chase price  which  was  known  by  the  distinctive 
name  mohar ;  we  have  no  direct  account  of  the  maxi- 
mum value  of  this  mohar,  but  from  a  comparison 
of  Deuteronomy  xxii.  29  and  Exodus  xxii.  15  we 
can  infer  that  in  the  time  of  Deuteronomy,  that  is, 
toward  the  close  of  the  kingdom  of  Judah,  the 
average  amount  of  the  mohar  was  50  shekels  of 
silver.  Since  we  have  shekels  still  preserved,  we 
can  at  least  fix  precisely  the  value  of  the  metal  in 
the  same.  The  shekel  of  ancient  Israel  weighed  14.5 
gr. :  according  to  the  present  standard  value  of  sil- 
ver 14.5  gr.  of  pure  silver  would  be  worth  $0.635, 
and  accordingly  the  normal  price  for  a  wife  would 
have  been  $31 . 75.  And  from  the  moment  when  the 
mohar  was  paid  down  and  accepted,  the  marriage 
was  regarded  as  legally  concluded  even  when  it  was 
not  yet  accomplished  in  fact.  But  it  is  clearly  to 
be  inferred  from  the  very  vivid  account  of  Eliezer's 
suit  for  the  hand  of  Rebecca  (Gen.  xxiv.)  that  the 
maiden  was  not  bartered  like  an  article  of  com- 


74  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

merce,  but  that  her  consent  was  necessary,  and  like- 
wise that  the  father  on  the  other  hand  could  refuse 
to  give  his  consent  to  a  union.  The  first  mention 
of  the  composition  of  a  written  marriage  contract  is 
found  in  Tobias  vii.  13,  and  here  the  circumstance 
is  involved  of  sending  the  daughter  far  away  from 
home  to  a  foreign  country. 

Legally  considered,  the  wife  was  the  property  of 
her  husband.  The  husband  indeed  bears  the  very 
name  of  "owner,"  ba'al,  and  the  married  woman  is 
called  ish-shdh  be'ulath  ba'al,  "a  woman  who  has 
become  the  property  of  an  owner."  But  the  ulti- 
mate reason  for  this  phenomenon  we  have  not  to 
seek  in  the  fact  that  the  woman  was  regarded  as 
merely  a  thing,  but  in  olden  times  the  whole  house- 
work and  all  the  domestic  industries  rested  upon 
the  shoulders  of  the  feminine  members  of  the  fam- 
ily. A  daughter,  therefore,  was  a  valuable  laboring- 
factor  in  the  father's  house,  of  which  he  was  de- 
prived, and  accordingly  it  was  proper  that  he  should 
be  recompensed  and  that  the  family  of  the  bride- 
groom should  pay  something  in  return  for  the  new 
additional  laborer.  Accordingly  the  mohar  is  not 
much  higher  than  the  average  price  of  a  slave, 
which  was,  according  to  Exodus  xxi.  32,  about  $19. 
And  thus  also  we  explain  the  fact  that  the  bridegroom 
can  offer  his  own  personal  services  instead  of  the 
mohar.  If  he  is  unable  to  raise  the  amount  of  the 
mohar,  he  becomes  the  slave  of  his  father-in-law 
and  thus  works  it  out.  Thus,  as  is  well  known, 
Jacob,  who  as  an  orphan  and  a  fugitive  was  of 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  CHILDREN  IN  ISRAEL.       75 

course  unable  to  offer  a  mohar,  served  his  father- 
in-law  seven  years  for  his  wife,  and  I  must  not 
neglect  to  note  expressly,  if  we  propose  to  regard 
the  marriage  contract  as  really  a  commercial  affair, 
that  it  was  solely  the  labor  of  the  bride  which  was 
the  object  of  purchase.  Marriage  was  never  a  spec- 
ulation in  ancient  Israel,  and  there  was  no  such  thing 
as  marriage  for  money,  for  the  bridegroom  had 
not  only  the  mohar  to  pay,  but  had  also  to  meet  the 
entire  expense  of  the  wedding  festivities  from  his 
own  means.  The  bride  received  no  money,  neither 
a  dowry  for  her  matrimonial  estate  nor  any  outlook 
for  the  inheritance  after  the  death  of  the  parents, 
for  according  to  the  notions  of  ancient  Israel  the 
woman  is  never  a  claimant  of  rights  but  only  the 
object  of  legal  claims,  and  has  accordingly  no  right 
of  inheritance.  What  is  regarded  as  a  matter  of 
course  among  us,  that  the  widow  shall  be  the  heir 
of  her  husband  and  that  the  estate  of  the  parents 
shall  be  divided  equally  between  the  sons  and  the 
daughters,  the  Israelite  of  old  would  not  have  under- 
stood at  all,  but  would  simply  have  regarded  as 
demented  any  one  who  said  and  claimed  such  things. 
Neither  the  widows  nor  the  daughters  received  any- 
thing, but  on  the  death  of  the  father  the  estate  was 
divided  among  his  sons,  the  first-born  receiving 
double  the  share  of  the  others,  but  to  offset  this  he 
had  to  assume  the  obligation  of  caring  for  and  sup- 
porting his  mother  and  his  sisters. 

Hence   the   Israelite  maiden   never  had   ground 
for  suspecting,  when  she  entered  upon  matrimony. 


76  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

that  she  was  being  married  on  account  of  her  money, 
as  a  perhaps  unwelcome  appendage  to  her  property, 
and  thus  one  of  the  chief  causes  of  unhappy  mar- 
riages was  removed. 

But  the  question  will  be  asked:  What  if  there 
were  no  sons,  but  only  daughters,  or  perhaps  no 
children  at  all,  and  only  a  widow?  In  such  cases, 
indeed,  the  widow  and  the  daughters  received  the 
estate,  but  in  this  case  they  had  not  the  free  disposal 
of  their  own  hand.  The  widow  had  to  marry  the 
brother  or  the  nearest  elder  kinsman  of  her  de- 
ceased husband,  and  the  daughter  some  member  of 
the  father's  family,  so  that  the  property  always  re- 
mained with  his  line. 

Now,  if  the  negotiations  had  reached  a  successful 
termination,  so  that  nothing  more  stood  in  the  way 
of  the  union  of  the  couple,  the  marriage  feast  was 
celebrated.  And  here  again  a  very  surprising  but 
unquestionable  fact  is  to  be  recorded.  Despite  the 
thoroughly  religious  character  of  ancient  Israel,  de- 
spite all  the  recognition  of  the  religious  character 
and  the  religious  foundation  of  matrimony,  the  Old 
Testament  does  not  contain  a  hint  of  any  religious 
consecration  of  the  matrimonial  tie,  or  in  modern 
phraseology,  of  any  ecclesiastical  ceremony.  And 
so  at  the  time  of  the  establishment  of  the  civil 
statutes  when  the  clerical  party  especially  protested 
so  vigorously  against  the  recognition  of  civil  mar- 
riage, while  the  Catholic  church  even  to  this  day  re- 
fuses to  recognize  the  civil  wedding  alone  as  a  valid 
marriage,  they  have  the  direct  testimony  of  at  least 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  CHILDREN  IN  ISRAEL.       77 

the  older  portion  of  the  Bible  against  them.  Ancient 
Israel  recognized  only  the  civil  marriage,  and  in- 
deed, strictly  speaking,  not  even  this;  for  the  state, 
so  far  as  we  may  speak  at  all  of  a  state  within  the 
borders  of  ancient  Israel,  paid  absolutely  no  atten- 
tion to  the  matrimonial  relations  of  its  subjects.  The 
marriage  contract  was  purely  a  family  affair,  in- 
volving only  private  rights.  Corresponding  to  the 
decisive  factor  from  the  point  of  view  of  private 
rights  that  the  bride  was  transferred  from  the  fam- 
ily of  her  father  to  that  of  the  bridegroom,  the 
essential  part  of  the  marriage  ceremony  was  the 
fetching  and  the  solemn  home-bringing  of  the  bride 
from  the  house  of  her  father  to  that  of  her  future 
husband.  This  home-bringing  was  accompanied  by 
songs  and  ceremonies  of  all  sorts,  but  by  nothing  in 
the  nature  of  religious  rites.  The  wedding  festiv- 
ities lasted  seven  days  and  were  at  the  expense  of 
the  bridegroom :  in  the  book  of  Tobias  the  wedding 
celebration  at  the  house  of  the  father-in-law  in 
Ecbatana  lasts  fourteen  days  (viii.  18),  and  after 
the  arrival  of  the  young  couple  in  Nineveh  a  further 
celebration  of  seven  days  takes  place  in  the  house  of 
the  father  (xi.  17). 

To  have  children  was  regarded  among  the  ancient 
Israelites  as  the  greatest  good  fortune  that  God  can 
grant  to  men ;  this  view  is  probably  expressed  most 
concisely  in  the  beautiful  saying,  "Behold,  sons  are 
a  gift  of  God,  and  children  are  the  reward  of  grace" 
(Psalms  cxxvii.  3).  On  the  other  hand,  childless- 
ness was  regarded  as  a  punishment  from  God,  and 


78  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

a  reproach  in  the  eyes  of  men.  There  is  no  indica- 
tion in  the  Old  Testament  that  any  sort  of  symbol- 
ical ceremony  was  necessary  on  the  part  of  the 
father  whereby  he  recognized  and  accepted  the  new- 
born child  as  his  own,  as  we  know  to  have  been  the 
fact  among  the  Romans  and  the  early  Germans, — 
not  even  in  Job  iii.  12. 

If  the  wife  herself  is  regarded  in  law  as  the  prop- 
erty of  her  husband,  the  same  is  still  more  the  case 
with  the  children.  In  law  the  relation  of  wife  and 
children  to  the  husband  and  father  is  the  same  as 
that  of  slaves,  and  accordingly  the  apostle  Paul  is 
thinking  and  speaking  in  strictly  Israelitic  spirit 
when  he  says  in  the  familiar  passage  of  Galatians 
(iv.  1)  :  "So  long  as  the  heir  is  a  child,  he  differeth 
nothing  from  a  bondservant,  although  he  shall  one 
day  be  the  master  of  all."  So  the  father  had  the 
right  to  sell  the  children,  under  the  single  limitation 
that  it  be  not  to  tribal  aliens.  And  so  also  he  had 
the  right  to  dispose  at  will  of  the  right  of  primo- 
geniture, that  is,  to  divert  the  right  of  the  first-born 
to  one  who  was  not  actually  the  first-born;  at  least 
this  prerogative  is  expressly  abolished  by  Deuteron- 
omy xxi.  15-17.  Indeed  the  father  had  the  right 
of  life  and  death  in  connection  with  the  child,  that 
is,  he  could  punish  the  child,  and  under  certain 
circumstances  (Gen.  xxxviii.  24)  the  daughter-in- 
law,  with  death,  of  course  in  cases  prescribed  by 
custom. 

The  way  in  which  the  book  of  Deuteronomy 
disposes  of  these  paternal  rights  is  very  character- 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  CHILDREN  IN  ISRAEL.       79 

istic.  We  read  there  (xxi.  18-21)  :  "If  a  man  have 
a  stubborn  and  rebellious  son,  who  will  not  obey  the 
voice  of  his  father  or  the  voice  of  his  mother,  and 
will  not  hearken  unto  them  though  they  chasten 
him;  then  shall  his  father  and  his  mother  lay  hold 
on  him,  and  bring  him  out  unto  the  gate  of  his 
place  to  the  elders  of  his  city,  and  shall  say  to  them : 
This  our  son  is  stubborn  and  rebellious,  he  will  not 
obey  our  voice,  he  is  a  riotous  liver  and  a  drunkard. 
And  all  the  men  of  the  city  shall  stone  him  to  death ; 
so  shalt  thou  put  away  evil  from  the  midst  of  thee ; 
and  all  hear  it  and  fear."  We  do  not  find  that  the 
parents  first  accuse  the  son,  and  that  afterwards  the 
elders  investigate  the  case  and  then  punish  him. 
No,  the  parents  are  both  accusers  and  judges :  only 
the  execution  is  withheld  from  them.  At  their  re- 
quest and  upon  their  simple  notification  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  city  must  execute  the  penalty  of  death 
against  the  rebellious  son.  This  is  a  consistent  de- 
velopment of  paternal  authority  similar  to  that  which 
we  see  executed  by  Roman  law. 

The  first  care  of  the  new-born  child  seems  not, 
or  at  least  not  always,  to  have  been  performed  by 
the  parents.  But  as  the  Greeks  had  a  paidagogos, 
that  is  exactly,  a  children's  guide,  a  slave  who  was 
charged  with  the  special  attendance  and  care  of  the 
child,  so  in  ancient  Israel  we  hear  of  something 
similar.  Here  too  we  are  told  repeatedly  of  atten- 
dants and  nurses,  male  or  female  as  the  case  may 
be,  who  looked  after  the  care  of  the  child.  They 
carried  the  child  especially  in  their  bosom,  that  is 


80  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

in  the  folds  of  the  garment  over  the  breast  and 
above  the  girdle,  and  later  probably  taught  the  child 
to  walk.  In  the  case  of  royal  children  they  probably 
remained  about  the  young  princes  as  tutors  (2  Kings 
x.  i  ff. ) .  Thus  in  a  familiar  passage  Moses  says  to 
God :  "Am  I  then  the  mother  of  this  whole  people, 
that  thou  sayest  to  me,  Bear  it  in  thy  bosom,  as  a 
nursing  father  bears  his  nurseling,  into  the  land 
which  thou  hast  promised  unto  their  fathers !"  (Num. 
xi.  12.)  And  in  the  book  of  Isaiah,  the  future  glory 
of  the  people  of  Israel  is  depicted  in  the  words: 
"And  kings  shall  be  thy  nursing-fathers"  (xlix.  23). 
And  so,  when  the  son  of  Jonathan  was  made  lame 
by  the  carelessness  of  his  nurse,  who  at  the  news 
of  the  defeat  in  battle  at  Mt.  Gilboa,  let  the  five-year- 
old  boy  fall  in  her  hasty  flight  (2  Sam.  xlix.  23), 
as  well  as  in  the  book  of  Ruth,  which  is  so  full  of 
charming  and  poetic  touches,  where  we  read  that 
Ruth's  mother-in-law,  Naomi,  nursed  the  son  of  her 
daughter  and  Boaz  (iv.  16).  And  on  the  subject 
of  learning  to  walk  also  we  have  a  picturesque  verse. 
In  one  of  the  most  touching  passages  of  the  book 
of  the  prophet  Hosea  we  read :  "When  Israel  was 
a  child,  then  I  loved  him  and  called  my  son  out  of 
Egypt. — Yet  I  taught  Ephraim  to  go;  I  took  them 
on  my  arms"  (xi.  1-3). 

But  in  order  to  enjoy  children  as  a  gift  of  God, 
they  must  turn  out  well  and  be  well  trained.  "A 
wise  son  maketh  a  glad  father,  but  a  foolish  son  is 
the  heaviness  of  his  mother;"  "The  father  of  the 
righteous  may  greatly  rejoice,  and  he  that  hath  a 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  CHILDREN  IN  ISRAEL.       81 

wise  child  may  have  joy  of  him;"  "He  that  hath  a 
fool  for  a  son,  the  same  hath  sorrow,  and  the 
father  of  a  fool  hath  no  joy;"  "A  foolish  son  is  a 
grief  to  his  father,  and  bitterness  to  her  that  bare 
him," — thus  speak  the  Proverbs  of  Solomon,  x.  1 ; 
xxiii.  24;  xvii.  21  and  25.  And:  "A  reproach  to  a 
father  is  an  ill-bred  son,  and  such  a  daughter  is  to 
him  a  great  evil" ;  "Cherish  no  longing  for  a  multi- 
tude of  useless  children,  and  take  no  pleasure  in 
godless  sons; — for  one  is  better  than  a  thousand, 
and  better  it  is  to  die  childless  than  to  have  impious 
sons,"  says  Jesus  Sirach,  xxii.  3;  xvi.  1-3.  From 
such  utterances  we  may  fairly  conclude  that  the 
training  of  children  was  regarded  as  something  very 
important  in  Israel  and  that  great  value  was  laid 
upon  it.  It  was  expected  to  begin  at  a  very  early 
age,  for  "What's  bred  in  youth  is  done  in  age"  was 
surely  a  principle  known  in  ancient  Israel  as  well  as 
elsewhere.  "Train  the  child  at  the  very  beginning 
of  his  ways,  and  when  he  is  old  he  will  not  depart 
therefrom,"  we  read  in  Proverbs,  xxiii.  6,  and  "If 
thou  hast  children  then  train  them  from  their  in- 
fancy," says  Jesus  Sirach,  vii.  23. 

Now  the  first  thing  that  was  demanded  of  the 
child  was  absolute  respect  for  its  parents.  "Honor 
thy  father  and  thy  mother,"  appears  already  in  the 
Ten  Commandments,  and  in  Leviticus,  xix.  3,  and 
xx.  9 :  "Ye  shall  fear  every  man  his  mother  and  his 
father, — for  I  am  the  Lord  your  God ;"  and  "Every 
one  that  curseth  his  father  or  his  mother  shall  be  put 
to  death."  The  Prophet  Malachi  says :  "A  son  hon- 


82  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT   ISRAEL. 

oreth  his  father,  and  a  slave  his  master"  (i.  6).  "Be 
obedient  to  thy  father  and  despise  not  thy  mother 
when  they  have  become  old";  "A  generation  that 
curseth  its  father  and  blesseth  not  its  mother, — 
an  eye  that  mocketh  at  its  father  and  that  despiseth 
to  obey  its  mother,  the  ravens  by  the  brook  shall 
pick  it  out  and  the  young  eagles  shall  eat  it,"  are 
utterances  of  Proverbs,  xxiii.  22;  and  xxx.  11  and 
17.  And  on  this  very  point  there  are  some  beautiful 
passages  in  Jesus  Sirach:  "Honor  thy  father  with 
thy  whole  heart,  and  never  forget  what  thy  mother 
had  to  suffer  for  thee.  Forget  not  that  thou  owest  to 
them  thy  life,  and  how  canst  thou  repay  them  for 
what  they  have  done  for  thee?"  (vii.  27-28).  "Hear, 
O  children,  the  commandments  of  your  father,  and 
walk  therein,  that  ye  may  prosper.  For  the  Lord 
has  made  honor  of  the  father  a  duty  of  the  chil- 
dren, and  the  commandments  of  the  mother  hath 
he  made  a  law  for  her  sons.  He  who  honoreth  his 
father  maketh  atonement  for  sins,  and  he  who  hon- 
oreth his  mother  gathereth  a  good  treasure.  He 
who  honoreth  his  father  will  have  joy  of  his  own 
children,  and  when  he  prays  his  prayers  will  be 
heard.  He  who  esteemeth  his  father  will  enjoy  long 
life,  and  he  who  obeyed  the  Lord  will  be  a  comfort 
to  his  mother.  He  who  feareth  the  Lord  will  honor 
his  father  and  will  serve  his  parents  as  though  they 
were  rulers.  Honor  thy  father  both  in  word  and  in 
deed,  that  a  blessing  may  come  upon  thee  from 
them.  For  the  father's  blessing  buildeth  houses  for 
the  children,  but  the  curse  of  the  mother  destroveth 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  CHILDREN  IN  ISRAEL.       83 

them.  Seek  not  thy  glory  in  the  dishonor  of  thy 
father,  for  his  dishonor  can  never  be  a  glory  to 
thee.  For  the  glory  of  a  man  is  the  honor  of  his 
father,  and  a  mother  dishonored  is  a  reproach  to 
her  children.  My  son,  care  for  thy  father  in  his 
age,  and  grieve  him  not  so  long  as  he  liveth.  And 
though  he  become  childish,  have  consideration  for 
him  and  despise  him  not  when  thou  art  in  thy  full 
strength.  For  compassion  upon  thy  father  will 
not  be  forgotten,  and  instead  of  the  punishment  of 
sins  thou  buildest  thine  house.  In  the  day  of  need 
thou  shalt  not  be  forgotten,  and  like  ice  before  the 
sun  thy  sins  shall  melt  away.  He  who  leaveth  his 
father  in  need  is  no  better  than  a  blasphemer,  and 
he  who  grieveth  his  mother  is  accursed  of  God" 
(iii.  1-16). 

One  particular  sort  of  respect  is  especially  com- 
mended. It  seems  to  have  been  customary  among 
the  ancient  Israelites  also  that  the  parents  withdrew 
to  the  old  folks'  apartments  and  lived  on  an  allow- 
ance. Jesus  Sirach  gives  a  most  energetic  warning 
against  this :  "Give  not  to  thy  son,  thy  wife,  thy 
brother  or  thy  friend  power  over  thee  so  long  as 
thou  livest.  As  long  as  a  breath  of  life  is  in  thee 
leave  not  thy  place  to  another  and  surrender  not  thy 
money  to  another,  lest  thou  be  compelled  to  beg  for 
it  of  another.  For  it  is  better  that  the  children  beg 
of  thee  than  that  thou  be  compelled  to  look  into  the 
hand  of  thy  son"  (xxx.  28-30).  In  the  same  cat- 
egory belong  two  sayings  in  Proverbs :  "He  that 
wasteth  his  father  and  chaseth  away  his  mother,  is 


84  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

a  son  that  causeth  shame  and  bringeth  reproach" 
(xix.  26),  and  "Whoso  robbeth  his  father  and  his 
mother,  and  saith,  It  is  no  transgression,  the  same 
is  among  the  worst  criminals"  (xxviii.  24).  As  a 
matter  of  course,  along  with  respect  for  parents  the 
child  was  trained  to  all  other  moral  obligations  and 
virtues. 

And  what  sort  of  pedagogical  principles  did  they 
have  in  ancient  Israel  ?  That  can  be  told  in  a  single 
word :  the  rod.  Discipline  was  indeed  very  severe. 
— to  our  modern  humanitarian  views  absolutely 
tyrannical.  The  foremost  demand  of  our  theory, 
that  the  individuality  of  the  child  must  be  allowed 
to  develop,  would  have  been  as  incomprehensible  to 
the  ancient  Israelite  as  would  have  been  the  claim 
of  woman  to  be  an  agent  of  the  law.  Obedience  was 
the  end  and  all.  And  since  this  is  not  apt  to  come 
of  itself,  it  was  necessary  to  resort  to  drastic  meas- 
ures. When  we  hear  the  proverb,  "My  son,  despise 
not  the  chastening  of  the  Lord;  neither  be  weary 
of  his  reproof;  for  whom  the  Lord  loveth  he  re- 
proveth,  he  chasteneth  the  son  in  whom  he  hath 
delight"  (iii.  11-12),  we  need  not  wonder  if  the 
earthly  father  also  lays  ungentle  hands  upon  his 
child  for  his  own  good.  For  "he  that  hath  been 
delicately  brought  up  from  childhood  will  become 
a  servant  and  end  in  misery,"  say  Proverbs  xxix.  21. 
(Such  is  probably  the  sense  of  the  corrupt  and  diffi- 
cult passage.)  On  this  particular  point  the  book 
of  Proverbs  and  Jesus  Sirach  express  themselves 
with  all  desirable  distinctness.  "He  that  spareth 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  CHILDREN  IN  ISRAEL.       85 

the  rod  hateth  his  son ;  but  he  that  loveth  him  chas- 
teneth  him  betimes."  "Foolishness  is  bound  up  in 
the  heart  of  a  child ;  but  the  rod  of  correction  shall 
drive  it  far  from  him."  "The  rod  and  reproof  give 
wisdom;  but  a  child  left  to  himself  causeth  shame 
to  his  mother."  "Correct  thy  son  and  he  shall  give 
thee  rest;  yea,  he  shall  give  delight  unto  thy  soul" 
(Prov.  xiii.  24;  xxii.  15;  xxix.  15,  17).  "As  is 
music  in  the  midst  of  mourning  so  is  a  reproof  out 
of  place;  but  chastisements  are  always  proper  in 
discipline"  (Jesus  Sirach  xxii.  6).  But  here  again 
the  most  characteristic  expression  is  an  extended 
disquisition  in  Jesus  Sirach:  "He  who  loveth  his 
son  letteth  him  taste  the  rod  continually  that  he  may 
have  pleasure  in  his  conduct  thereafter.  He  who 
chasteneth  his  son  will  have  pleasure  in  him,  neither 
will  he  be  ashamed  of  him  before  his  friends.  He 
who  instructeth  his  son,  giveth  offence  to  his  enemy, 
and  will  rejoice  over  him  in  the  presence  of  his 
friends.  And  if  his  father  die,  it  is  as  though  he 
had  not  died,  for  he  leaveth  his  like  behind  him  in 
his  place.  So  long  as  he  liveth  he  has  his  pleasure 
in  him,  and  when  he  cometh  to  die  he  is  untroubled. 
He  leaveth  behind  him  an  avenger  against  his  ene- 
mies, and  to  his  friends  one  who  will  remember  their 
kindnesses.  But  he  will  spoil  his  son  who  takes 
every  blow  to  heart  and  who  is  distressed  whenever 
he  weepeth.  As  an  untamed  horse  is  rebellious,  so 
a  spoiled  son  is  uncurbed.  Treat  thy  son  with 
delicacy  and  thou  wilt  afterwards  fear  him;  play 
with  him  and  he  will  afterwards  grieve  thee.  Jest 


86  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

with  him  and  he  will  cause  thee  trouble  and  thou 
shalt  be  called  to  account  for  his  evil  deeds.  Give 
him  not  much  freedom  in  his  youth  and  excuse  not 
his  follies.  Bend  his  neck  the  while  he  is  young 
and  bruise  his  back  while  he  is  small,  that  he  may 
not  become  stubborn  and  disobedient  to  thee  and 
thou  have  sorrow  because  of  him.  Bring  up  thy 
son  to  labor,  lest  he  give  offence  and  become  a  dis- 
grace to  thee"  (xxx.  1-13). 

But  the  strongest,  and  absolutely  shocking  for  our 
present  feeling,  are  two  sayings  from  the  Book  of 
Proverbs,  which  for  this  reason  I  have  saved  to  the 
last:  "Chasten  thy  son,  seeing  there  is  hope;  thou 
wilt  not  beat  him  quite  to  death"  (xix.  18),  and 
"Withhold  not  correction  from  the  child ;  for  though 
thou  beat  him  with  the  rod  yet  will  he  not  die  of  it. 
Thou  shalt  beat  him  with  the  rod  and  thus  deliver 
his  soul  from  hell"  (xxiii.  13-14).  For  easily  con- 
ceivable reasons  the  attempt  has  been  made  to  elim- 
inate this  unmerciful  beating  from  the  text  by  in- 
genious interpretation  of  the  death  as  a  spiritual 
death :  Chastise  thy  son,  seeing  there  is  hope,  lest 
thou  be  guilty  of  his  death,  inasmuch  as  he  would 
become  the  prey  of  death  if  he  grow  up  without 
virtue ;  or  again :  Withhold  not  correction  from  the 
child;  if  thou  strike  it  with  the  rod  it  will  not  die 
but  through  severe  discipline  will  become  a  pious 
man  who  will  escape  the  judgment  for  sin.  But 
this  seems  to  me  to  be  wholly  contrary  to  the  sense 
and  spirit  of  the  book  of  Proverbs.  In  fact,  that 
which  Luther  so  aptly  translated  from  Jesus  Sirach 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  CHILDREN  IN  ISRAEL.       87 

as  "beat  his  back  blue"  is  literally :  "break  his  ribs." 
The  Oriental  is  fond  of  drastic  and  hyperbolical  ex- 
pressions, which  of  course  must  not  be  glossed  over. 
That  the  Old  Testament  does  not  regard  the  father 
exclusively  as  the  tyrannical  administrator  of  chas- 
tisement is  sufficiently  proven  by  the  familiar  pas- 
sage of  Psalms :  "Like  as  a  father  pitieth  his  chil- 
dren, so  the  Lord  pitieth  them  that  fear  Him"  (ciii. 
13),  and  that  the  rod  was  only  the  last  resort,  and 
that  they  could  get  along  very  well  without  it,  is 
sufficiently  shown  by  the  Proverb:  "A  rebuke  en- 
tereth  deeper  into  one  that  hath  understanding  than 
a  hundred  stripes  into  a  fool"  (xvii.  10).  But  all 
the  preceding  evidence  shows  us  clearly  this:  That 
the  family  according  to  ancient  Israelitic  notions 
was  an  absolute  monarchy,  with  the  father  as  ab- 
solute monarch  at  the  head.  Authority  and  obe- 
dience are  its  foundation-stones. 

But  while  what  we  have  thus  far  been  considering 
constitutes  what  may  be  called  moral  education,  we 
must  now  proceed  to  inquire  regarding  intellectual 
education.  What  did  the  child  have  to  learn  in 
ancient  Israel?  Jesus  Sirach  speaks,  xxx.  3,  of  in- 
struction given  to  the  son :  what  may  have  been  the 
topics  of  this  instruction  ?  Here  too  the  Old  Testa- 
ment leaves  no  room  for  doubt  on  the  point  that 
the  first  and  most  important  thing  that  the  father 
had  to  teach  his  son  was  religion,  that  religious  in- 
struction was  the  basis  and  the  starting-point  of 
education.  "Abraham  will  command  his  children 
and  his  household  after  him  that  they  may  keep 


88  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

the  way  of  the  Lord  to  do  justice  and  judgment, 
that  the  blessing  may  come  upon  them"  (Gen.  xviii. 
19).  "They  shall  learn  to  fear  me  all  the  days 
that  they  live  upon  the  earth,  and  that  they  may 
also,  teach  it  to  their  children"  (Deut.  iv.  10).  "And 
these  words  which  I  command  thee  this  day,  thou 
shalt  take  to  heart,  and  thou  shalt  teach  them  dili- 
gently to  thy  children"  (Deut.  vi.  6-7).  The  father 
is  directed  to  use  every  opportunity  in  order  to  give 
his  son  religious  instruction.  On  the  occasion  of 
the  feasts  especially  the  opportunity  presented  itself 
as  a  matter  of  course.  "And  when  at  the  feast  of 
the  Passover  thy  son  shall  ask  thee,  What  mean  ye 
by  this  service?  ye  shall  say,  It  is  the  sacrifice  of 
the  Lord's  Passover,  who  passed  over  the  houses  of 
the  children  of  Israel  in  Egypt,  when  he  smote  the 
Egyptians,  and  delivered  our  houses. — And  thou 
shalt  tell  thy  son  in  that  day:  Thus  did  the  Lord 
deal  with  me  when  I  came  up  out  of  Egypt"  (Exod. 
xii.  26-27,  xiii.  8).  The  same  directions  are  given 
in  connection  with  the  pillars  of  stone  that  were 
set  up  at  Gilgal  in  memory  of  the  miraculous  pas- 
sage of  the  Jordan.  "When  your  children  shall  ask 
their  fathers  in  time  to  come,  What  mean  these 
stones?  then  ye  shall  let  your  children  know,  say- 
ing, Israel  came  over  this  Jordan  on  dry  land" 
(Josh  iv.  21-22). 

A  classic  testimonial  of  this  religious  chain  of  in- 
struction as  the  center  of  all  domestic  training  and 
instruction  in  Israel  is  the  beginning  of  the  78th 
Psalm :  "I  will  proclaim  to  you  the  mysteries  of  old, 


V*    / 

THE  EDUCATION  OF  CHILDREN  IN  ISRAEL.       89^ / 

,\ 

which  we  have  heard  and  learned,  and  what  our  6 
fathers  have  told  us.  Their  children  did  not  hide 
it,  but  told  to  the  generations  to  come  the  great 
deeds  of  Yahveh  and  the  wonders  that  he  did  for 
Israel;  how  he  commanded  our  fathers  to  instruct 
their  children  in  the  same,  that  the  generation  to 
come  might  know  it,  even  the  children  which  were 
yet  to  be  born  and  these  in  turn  be  zealous  to  tell 
it  to  their  children,  that  they  might  set  their  trust 
in  God  and  not  forget  the  mighty  deeds  of  the 
Lord"  (Ixxviii.  2-7).  It  is  the  first  and  most  essen- 
tial element  of  the  instruction  to  train  the  children 
to  be  pious,  orthodox  and  well-grounded  Israelites, 
and  to  this  end  is  employed  first  of  all  instruction 
in  Bible  history.  According  to  a  familiar  passage 
in  the  "Sayings  of  the  Patriarchs"  the  instruction 
in  Bible  history  was  to  begin  in  the  child's  fifth 
year. 

But  what  was  the  status  of  the  proper  topics  of 
education?  Writing,  reading,  and  arithmetic  are 
things  which  do  not  impart  themselves,  and  yet  they 
are  indispensable  in  daily  life.  Now  we  have  defi- 
nite evidence  that  reading  and  writing  were  widely 
known  in  Israel  even  in  the  earliest  times.  Gideon 
wishes  to  punish  the  elders  of  the  city  of  Succoth 
for  their  unpatriotic  conduct.  "And  he  caught  a 
young  man,"  so  the  book  of  Judges  tells  us,  "of 
the  men  of  Succoth,  and  he  was  compelled  to  write 
down  for  him  the  chiefs  and  the  elders  of  the  city, 
seventy  and  seven  men"  (viii.  14).  This  narrative 
gives  us,  to  be  sure,  no  evidence  regarding  the  time 


90  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

of  Gideon,  but  it  does  for  the  time  when  it  was 
written :  it  is  a  part  of  the  oldest  historical  tradition 
of  Israel,  and  in  this  it  is  taken  as  a  matter  of  course 
that  the  first  comer  picked  up  from  the  field  can 
write.  Or,  to  take  another  case,  David's  captain 
Joab  was  by  no  means  what  we  would  call  an  edu- 
cated man,  but  yet  he  knew  how  to  read  and  write, 
as  is  shown  clearly  enough  in  the  incident  of  the  all 
too  famous  Uriah  letter  (2  Sam.  xi.  14).  The  same 
is  true  in  the  time  of  Isaiah,  as  indicated  in  the  pas- 
sage, speaking  of  the  condition  of  Assyria  after  the 
divine  judgment,  "And  the  remnant  of  the  glory  of 
Assyria  shall  be  small,  that  a  little  child  might  record 
it"  (x.  19),  that  is,  make  a  list,  an  inventory  of  it. 
And  the  fact  that  the  judicial  procedure  at  the  time 
of  this  great  prophet  was  documentary,  as  is  the 
case  in  the  Orient  at  the  present  day,  is  proved  by 
the  circumstance  that  Isaiah  characterizes  unjust 
judges  as  "writers  that  write  perverseness"  (x.  1). 
At  a  peculiarly  important  crisis  of  his  prophetic 
activity  he  is  required  to  take  a  tablet  before  wit- 
nesses, on  which  he  is  to  write  "with  human  pencil," 
that  is,  in  the  common  cursive  hand,  the  mysterious 
words  "The  spoil  speedeth,  the  prey  hasteth."  And 
along  with  this,  the  oldest  monument  of  Hebrew 
writing  known  to  us,  the  Mesa  stone  of  Dibon, 
erected  by  a  contemporary  of  the  prophet  Elijah, 
exhibits  so  distinctly  and  perfectly  the  characteris- 
tics of  cursive  script  as  to  demonstrate  the  existence 
in  Israel  of  a  long-practiced  art  of  writing. 

But  the  Old  Testament  nowhere  gives  the  slightest 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  CHILDREN  IN  ISRAEL.       91 

hint  of  public  schools  or  of  professional  teachers. 
The  attempt  has  been  made  to  find  in  a  very  obscure 
passage  of  Isaiah,  xxviii.  9-13,  an  allusion  to  in- 
struction in  reading  of  written  characters  imparted 
by  a  teacher.  The  defiant  and  conceited  princes  of 
Jerusalem  are  not  willing  to  be  treated  like  school- 
boys by  Isaiah,  as  we  would  express  the  idea,  but 
Isaiah  has  nothing  to  say  of  a  public  school  and  of 
methodical  instruction  in  the  reading  of  manuscript 
imparted  there.  Hence  we  must  assume,  since  the 
art  of  writing  was  widely  cultivated,  that  writing 
reading,  and  reckoning  were  taught  in  ancient  Israel 
at  home  and  by  the  father  alone,  that  no  school 
interposed  its  disturbing  and  hostile  influence  be- 
tween the  child  and  its  parental  house;  nevertheless 
they  thrived  excellently  without  it,  and  it  is  easy  to 
imagine  how  such  a  close  association  of  children 
and  parents,  to  whom  the  parental  house  was  every- 
thing, must  needs  bring  to  family  life  a  warmth  and 
to  the  feeling  of  solidarity  a  permanence,  of  which 
we  people  of  modern  times  have  as  yet  no  notion, 
for  the  dominant  tendency  of  our  time  is  to  reduce 
the  sphere  of  home  and  family  bit  by  bit  and  to 
make  of  man  nothing  but  a  mere  figure  in  the  census 
reports  and  the  tax  rolls. 

And  now  I  must  give  answers  to  two  questions 
which  have  perhaps  been  busying  the  attention  of  my 
readers,  and  especially  the  ladies,  for  some  time: 
What  of  the  mother  and  what  of  the  daughters? 
Hitherto  only  son  and  father  have  been  spoken  of. 
What  position  in  the  education  of  the  children  and 


92  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

what  influence  upon  it  did  Israel  ascribe  to  the 
mother  ?  And  what  did  they  think  of  the  education 
of  girls?  First  of  all  we  must  frankly  admit  that 
the  mother  appears  in  only  a  single,  and  that  a  very 
obscure,  passage  as  consciously  participating  in  the 
education  of  the  children.  In  the  Proverbs  of  Solo- 
mon, there  is  to  be  found  near  the  end  of  the  book 
a  little  collection  of  sayings,  xxxi.  1-9,  with  the 
special  heading:  The  Words  of  Lemuel,  the  King 
of  Massa,  Which  his  Mother  Taught  him.  Other- 
wise the  mother  is  indeed  mentioned  along  with  the 
father,  but  always  in  the  second  place.  "Listen  to 
the  commandment  of  thy  father  and  despise  not  the 
instruction  of  thy  mother"  (Prov.  i.  8).  And  the 
following  passage  in  Proverbs  is  especially  charac- 
teristic :  "When  I  was  a  son  unto  my  father,  tender 
and  only  beloved  in  the  charge  of  my  mother,  then 
he  taught  me  and  said  unto  me"  (iv.  3-4).  Here,  in 
poetic  parallelism,  the  mother  is  mentioned  first,  one 
may  say  for  propriety's  sake,  but  after  that  she  is 
utterly  ignored :  it  is  the  father  alone  who  teaches  and 
educates.  That  this  is  nothing  accidental  is  proved 
by  the  comparison  of  two  very  similar  poetical  pas- 
sages, one  German,  the  other  Israelitish.  We  have  a 
eulogy  of  the  virtuous  housewife  in  The  Song  of 
the  Bell,  and  we  also  have  one  in  the  Proverbs  of 
Solomon,  xxxi.  10-31.  Now  in  our  Schiller  we 
find  directly  that 

"She  ruleth  wisely 

Her  sphere  of  home, 

The  maidens  training, 

The  boys  restraining." 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  CHILDREN  IN  ISRAEL.       93 

In  the  much  longer  biblical  eulogy  of  the  virtuous 
housewife  we  find  no  word  of  this:  she  is  depicted 
as  one  who  takes  excellent  care  of  her  husband  and 
his  household  and  keeps  everything  in  the  best  con- 
dition,— but  of  the  children  and  of  her  domestic  con- 
trol as  mother,  not  a  word!  Toward  the  end,  in- 
deed, there  is  found  the  very  beautiful  expression: 
"She  opens  her  mouth  with  wisdom  and  under- 
standeth  kindly  instruction"  (xxxi.  26),  but  this  is 
put  in  very  general  terms  and  comes  in  quite  acci- 
dentally. We  meet  here  an  undeniable  and  very 
surprising  fact.  Not,  indeed,  that  the  Old  Testa- 
ment is  altogether  lacking  in  appreciation  of  mother 
love.  When,  for  instance,  we  read  in  the  First  Book 
of  Samuel  how  Hannah,  the  mother  of  the  prophet 
Samuel,  visits  her  son,  who  is  dedicated  to  the  sanc- 
tuary, once  a  year  at  the  time  of  the  harvest  festival 
in  the  temple  at  Shiloh,  and  brings  to  him  a  suit  of 
clothing  made  by  herself,  it  moves  our  heart  to  its 
depths.  To  express  the  highest  degree  of  sadness 
the  Psalmist  says  (xxxv.  14)  :  "Like  one  who  is 
mourning  for  his  mother."  Repeatedly  the  love  of 
God  is  compared  with  the  love  of  a  mother,  and 
perhaps  nothing  more  beautiful  and  touching  was 
ever  written  than  the  word  of  the  prophet:  "As  a 
man  whom  his  mother  comforteth"  (Isaiah  Ixvi. 
13).  It  is  not,  "As  a  son  whom  his  mother  com- 
forteth," but  "As  a  man"  For  even  a  man,  proud 
and  conscious  of  his  strength,  has  moments  when 
only  a  mother  can  restore  and  comfort  him. 

If  then,  despite  this  warm  appreciation  of  mother- 


94  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

love,  the  mother  is  slighted  in  comparison  with  the 
father  in  the  very  realm  which  our  modern  notion 
regards  as  her  peculiar  domain,  we  must  assume 
that  it  was  a  conscious  purpose  in  Israel  that  placed 
the  education  absolutely  in  the  hands  of  the  father, 
and  we  can,  moreover,  recognize  this  purpose  else- 
where. It  was  desired  that  the  training  should  be 
serious  and  severe,  not  the  coddling  of  a  "mother's 
pet,"  but  a  school  for  life,  and  this  they  felt  could 
be  better  given  the  child  by  the  father  who  knew  life 
because  he  stood  in  the  midst  of  it. 

And  certainly  it  would  be  very  salutary  for  the 
present  day  if  fathers  devoted  themselves  more  to 
their  children  and  their  children's  education,  and  we 
must  surely  hold  to  this  as  an  ideal  requirement.  At 
the  same  time  we  will  not  forget  that  such  condi- 
tions are  possible  only  in  a  patriarchal  state  which 
knows  nothing  of  special  callings  and  professional 
work.  It  is  a  matter  of  course  that  we  cannot  de- 
mand of  a  modern  father  who  labors  day  after  day 
in  his  office  or  his  counting-room  all  that  was  done 
and  could  well  be  done  by  the  father  in  ancient 
Israel. 

And  what  of  the  daughters?  First  of  all  I  must 
discuss  some  passages  of  Luther's  Bible  translation 
where  "daughters"  are  mentioned.  In  the  so-called 
Sayings  of  Jacob,  Genesis  xlix.,  where  Luther  trans- 
lated in  the  sayings  about  Joseph,  "His  daughters  go 
about  the  management"  (of  the  house?),  ("Seine 
Tochter  treten  einher  im  Regiment"),  this  is  simply 
a  very  queer  misunderstanding  of  what  is  to  be  sure 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  CHILDREN  IN  ISRAEL.       95 

a  very  difficult  passage,  which  is  speaking  of  grape- 
vines and  not  of  daughters.  And  in  the  famous 
parable  of  the  Prophet  Nathan  regarding  the  one 
lamb  of  the  poor  man,  where  it  is  said,  "It  did  eat 
of  his  own  morsel  and  drink  of  his  own  cup  and 
slept  in  his  bosom,  and  was  unto  him  as  a  daughter" 
(2  Sam.  xii.  3),  this  gives  us  the  impression  that 
it  is  intended  to  express  a  greater  degree  of  tender- 
ness than  if  it  had  said,  "It  was  unto  him  as  a  son." 
But  the  lamb  is  in  Hebrew  of  the  feminine  gender : 
the  passage  is  strictly :  "She  was  unto  him,"  so  that 
there  was  nothing  to  do  but  to  add,  "a  daughter." 
For  our  sense  of  language  the  only  correct  transla- 
tion would  be,  "And  it  was  unto  him  as  a  child." 
And  when  Luther  translates  in  the  eulogy  of  the 
virtuous  woman,  Proverbs  xxxi.  29,  "Many  daugh- 
ters bring  wealth,"  many  a  Bible  reader  with  a  wealth 
of  daughters  may  have  shaken  his  head  incredu- 
lously over  the  passage  and  thought  to  himself :  that 
relentless  realist  Jesus  Sirach  certainly  knew  life 
better.  For  in  an  exceedingly  drastic  disquisition, 
much  too  drastic  for  our  sensibilities,  he  shows 
that  a  daughter  is  a  very  questionable  treasure  which 
keeps  the  poor  father  awake  of  nights  with  anxiety 
(xlii.  9-14).  Now  the  passage  in  question  in  Prov- 
erbs of  the  many  daughters  who  bring  wealth, 
should  read,  "There  are  indeed  many  excellent 
maidens." 

As  to  the  education  of  daughters,  there  is  in  the 
entire  Old  Testament  only  a  single  utterance,  and 
that  in  Jesus  Sirach,  but  a  very  striking  one:  "If 


96  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

thou  hast  daughters,  train  them  to  walk  virtuously, 
and  regard  them  not  too  tenderly.  If  thou  dispose 
of  a  daughter  in  marriage,  thou  hast  done  a  good 
work,  but  give  her  to  a  man  of  understanding"  (vii. 
24-251).  That  is  all  that  we  have  on  the  subject. 
Of  course  the  religious  instruction  was  given  to  the 
daughters  also,  yet  in  addition  they  received  in- 
struction in  domestic  work,  which  of  course  was 
taught  by  the  mother. 

But  as  for  education  in  the  special  sense  of  the 
word,  viz.,  writing,  reading  and  arithmetic,  we  have 
neither  direct  nor  indirect  information  on  the  sub- 
ject. For  even  though  Queen  Jezebel  in  the  familiar 
account  of  Naboth  writes  a  letter  to  the  elders  of 
Jezreel  and  seals  it  with  the  seal  of  King  Ahab 
(1  Kings  xxi.  9),  we  cannot  conclude  from  this 
alone  that  girls  in  general  could  read  and  write. 
And  we  have  a  classic  illustration  of  the  view  of  the 
later  Orient  on  this  subject.  An  exceedingly  popu- 
lar variety  of  literature  is  what  is  known  as  the 
literature  of  apothegms,  in  which  are  collected  max- 
ims, opinions,  sententious  sayings  of  famous  men, 
chiefly  Greek  philosophers.  These  apothegms  are 
found  throughout  the  entire  Orient  in  translations 
and  the  greatest  variety  of  versions,  so  that  we  may 
fairly  regard  their  contents  as  typical.  And  among 
these  apothegms  the  following  story  is  told  of  the  phi- 
losopher Diogenes :  One  day  seeing  some  one  teaching 
a  girl  to  write,  he  said,  They  are  dipping  her  arrows 
in  poison!  That  means  a  vigorous  and  thorough- 

1  In  Luther's  Bible  verses  26-27. 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  CHILDREN  IN  ISRAEL.       97 

going  hostility  to  all  feminine  education,  and  this  the 
Oriental  clearly  regarded  as  wise  and  correct.  For 
the  Oriental  has  never  been  able  to  rise  to  the  recog- 
nition of  the  equal  rights  of  man  and  woman,  or 
even  of  an  equal  humanity  in  them.  And  in  this 
respect  the  Israelite  is  Oriental.  In  the  Talmud  we 
find  three  times  the  saying:  "Well  for  him  whose 
children  are  boys;  woe  to  him  whose  children  are 
girls !"  In  the  Old  Testament  there  is  indeed  noth- 
ing like  this  directly  expressed,  but  without  doubt 
this  is  what  the  Israelite  of  old  thought. 

The  Koran  also  furnishes  instructive  material  on 
this  point.  The  heathen  Arabs  worshiped  chiefly 
three  feminine  divinities,  who  are  called  daughters 
of  Allah ;  for  they  were  fond  of  conceiving  all 
higher  powers  as  feminine.  Mohammed  attacks 
this  habit  of  thought  with  the  following  drastic 
argumentum  ad  hominem:  "Is  it  not  true  that  ye 
wish  to  have  sons ;  and  should  God  have  daughters  ? 
And  if  the  birth  of  a  daughter  is  announced  to  one 
of  you,  then  his  face  is  o'erclouded  with  trouble, 
and  he  suppresses  his  desperation  only  with  diffi- 
culty, and  hesitates  to  appear  in  public  because  of 
the  bad  news  that  has  come  to  him,  and  he  is  in 
doubt  whether  to  bring  her  up  to  his  own  disgrace 
or  rather  to  bury  her  in  the  earth!"  (Surah  16, 
verses  59-61 ).  The  exposure  and  murder  of  newly- 
born  girl  children  is  of  course  a  widespread  custom, 
of  which  the  prophet  Ezekiel  must  have  known,  for 
in  the  famous  sixteenth  chapter  of  his  book  he 
describes  Jerusalem  as  a  new-born,  castaway  Bed- 


98  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

ouin  girl,  that  lies  moaning  and  weltering  in  her  own 
blood  by  the  wayside,  where  God  finds  her  and  takes 
her  up,  and  then  tends  lovingly  and  rears  to  maturity. 
Not  that  Ezekiel  meant  to  ascribe  such  an  abomin- 
able practice  to  the  ancient  Israelites,  for  he  also 
says  expressly,  "Thy  father  was  an  Amorite  and  thy 
mother  a  Hittite." 

But  in  the  passage  cited,  Mohammed  speaks  of 
burying  in  the  earth,  and  on  this  point  our  informa- 
tion about  the  ancient  Arabs  furnishes  us  a  horrible 
illustration,  for  there  was  among  them  a  custom 
which  is  even  not  lacking  in  a  certain  grim  humor 
and  probably  presents  in  its  unqualified  brutality 
the  most  peculiar  of  all  solutions  of  the  woman  ques- 
tion. If  casting  away  in  infancy  did  not  accomplish 
the  desired  result,  and  if  there  were  still  too  many 
girls  in  the  community,  then  the  fathers  took  the 
unmarried  daughters,  decked  them  as  brides  and 
buried  them  alive.  That  is  the  Oriental  concep- 
tion of  the  inferiority  of  women,  who  were  really 
regarded  merely  as  a  necessary  evil.  And  in  this 
point  Israel  did  not  wholly  break  down  the  Oriental 
barrier,  and  indeed  it  did  not  actually  accept  the 
complete  religious  equality  of  men  and  women. 

Attention  has  often  been  called  to  the  fact  that 
in  the  priestly  regulations  of  Leviticus  the  priest  is 
forbidden  to  defile  himself  by  contact  with  the  corpse 
of  his  wife;  that  is,  to  perform  the  funeral  lament 
for  her;  at  least,  in  the  evidently  very  accurate  list 
of  the  persons  for  whom  he  may  perform  this  service 
the  wife  is  lacking  (Lev.  xxi.  2-3).  Judaism  also 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  CHILDREN  IN  ISRAEL.       99 

regarded  the  man  as  the  sole  bearer  of  religious 
worship.  The  main  space  of  the  synagogue  is  used 
exclusively  by  men,  while  the  women,  concealed  in 
the  balconies  are  spectators  rather  than  participants 
in  the  worship.  The  obligation  which  rested  upon 
every  mature  male  Israelite  of  reciting  twice  a  day 
the  so-called  schema,  the  elemental  confession  of 
Judaism,  is  expressly  designated  as  not  valid  for 
women  in  a  Mishnah  of  the  treatise  Berachoth,  and 
since  the  man  thanks  God  expressly  in  the  daily 
prayer  that  he  was  created  a  man,  of  course  man 
and  wife  cannot  even  pray  in  concert.  Hence  we 
need  no  longer  be  surprised  if  we  find  in  the  Old 
Testament  nothing  of  the  education  of  girls. 

Let  me  sum  up.  The  ancient  Israelite  family 
was  an  absolute  monarchy  based  upon  obedience, 
and  the  father  the  absolute  monarch  in  it.  The 
education  of  the  children  also  lies  entirely  in  his 
hands.  Training  is  strict,  even  harsh,  the  funda- 
mental element  of  it  being  religion  and  its  principal 
aim  the  development  of  a  religious  personality.  Even 
the  school  instruction  was  given  at  home  and  by  the 
father ;  whether  the  daughters  received  any  share  of 
it  we  do  not  know. 

These  views  precisely  reverse  everything  that  we 
regard  as  natural  and  a  matter  of  course.  What 
then  shall  we  think  of  them?  They  are  certainly 
not  the  final  word  on  the  subject;  the  gospel  of  the 
freedom  of  the  children  of  God,  in  which  there  is 
no  distinction  of  male  and  female,  is  higher.  But 
let  us  not  on  that  account  despise  them;  for  they 


100  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

served  their  purpose,  they  stood  the  fiery  test  in  a 
very  literal  sense.  If  Israel  has  successfully  out- 
lived all  its  persecutions  and  all  the  blows  of  fate, 
this  has  been  possible  only  because  every  individual 
household  constituted  a  compact  unit,  which  might 
be  destroyed  but  not  broken  up.  And  although  much 
about  this  institution,  even  perhaps  the  whole  of  it, 
fails  to  secure  our  approval,  yet  I  would  like  to  call 
attention  to  one  very  cogent  fact.  Our  kindred 
nation  in  distant  South  Africa,  whose  heroic  strug- 
gle for  its  freedom  and  existence  for  nearly  three 
years  kept  the  whole  world  that  has  any  heart  in 
a  fever  of  hopeless  hope,  is  a  shining  illustration 
of  the  Old  Testament  sort  of  education.  The  Boers, 
with  their  childlike  trust  in  God  and  their  naive 
belief  in  the  Bible,  with  their  patriarchal  conditions 
and  their  old-fashioned  institutions,  are  in  the  very 
depths  of  their  nature  Old  Testament  people.  And 
what  applies  to  the  Boers  holds  good  for  Israel.  The 
Old  Testament  sort  of  education  trained  men  and 
heroes,  perhaps  not  always  lovable  and  sympathetic, 
but  whole  men,  armed  for  the  battle  of  life  and 
steeled  for  martyrdom,  greater  heroes  perhaps  in 
suffering  and  enduring  than  in  action.  An  educa- 
tion that  can  show  such  results  and  upon  which  the 
blessing  of  God  rested  evidently  for  so  many  thou- 
sand years,  may  certainly  command  our  admiration. 


MUSIC  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT. 

MUSIC  belongs  to  the  inalienable  rights  of 
man.  It  is  the  effort  to  make  oneself  in- 
telligible to  his  fellow  men  by  means  of  the  stimu- 
lation of  sounds  of  all  kinds.  Music  exists  wher- 
ever men  are  found  upon  the  earth,  and  everywhere 
they  show  a  genuine  refinement  in  the  discovery 
of  means  by  which  to  originate  sounds.  There  is 
hardly  anything  which  can  not  be  brought  into  use 
for  its  purposes. 

We  do  not  intend  to  lose  ourselves  here  in  specu- 
lation upon  the  psychological  reasons  for  this  de- 
monic impulse;  we  will  be  content  simply  to  estab- 
lish the  fact  and  will  not  enter  into  it  with  regard 
to  humanity  in  general,  but  only  in  so  far  as  the 
people  of  Israel  is  concerned.  Even  with  reference 
to  the  Old  Testament  we  will  limit  ourselves  to  what 
the  Old  Testament  itself  can  tell  us  about  music  and 
musical  things. 

Many  passages  have  proved  very  puzzling  to 
Bible  readers.  For  instance  when  we  read  in  the 
heading  of  Psalm  Ixxx,  "To  the  chief  Musician 
upon  Shoshannim-Eduth,  A  Psalm  of  Asaph";  or 
in  the  heading  of  Psalm  Ix,  "To  the  chief  Musician 
upon  Shushan-eduth,  Michtam  of  David,  to  teach" ; 


102  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

or  in  the  heading  of  Psalm  Ivi,  "To  the  chief  Musi- 
cian upon  Jonath-elem-rechokim,  Michtam  of  Da- 
vid" ;  or  when  Psalms  viii,  Ixxxi,  and  Ixxxiv,  bear 
the  inscription,  "To  the  chief  Musician  upon  Git- 
tith";  or  the  three,  xxxix,  Ixii,  and  Ixxvii  "to 
Jeduthun";  we  may  certainly  assume  that  we  have 
an  explanation  for  these  hieroglyphics  in  consider- 
ing that  they  possess  some  kind  of  a  musical  char- 
acter.1 Accordingly  it  will  be  our  task  to  gather  to- 
gether and  to  sift  out  the  information  given  by  the 
Old  Testament  itself  upon  music  and  musical  mat- 
ters and  then  to  see  whether  we  can  unite  and  com- 
bine these  scattered  and  isolated  features  into  one 
comprehensive  picture  or  at  least  into  a  compara- 
tively clear  idea.  It  is  only  scattered  and  isolated 
features  which  the  Old  Testament  offers  us  and  not 
very  much  of  them  nor  very  abundantly.  Not  per- 
haps because  music  had  played  a  subordinate  and 
inconspicuous  part  in  the  life  of  ancient  Israel, — on 
the  contrary  they  must  have  been  a  people  of  an 
unusually  musical  temperament  whose  daily  nour- 
ishment was  song  and  sound.  On  this  point  the 
Old  Testament  itself  leaves  little  room  for  doubt. 

1  Luther  in  his  translation  makes  an  attempt  to  translate 
these  "hieroglyphics,"  but  the  above  quoted  meaningless  com- 
binations of  letters  from  the  King  James  version  hardly  convey 
less  significance  to  the  reader  of  to-day  than  his  sentences: 
"Ein  Psalm  Assaphs  von  den  Spanrosen,  vorzusingen"  (Ixxx)  ; 
"Ein  gulden  Kletnod  Davids,  vorzusingen,  von  einem  guldenen 
Rosenspan  zu  lehren"  (Ix)  ;  etc.  Professor  Cornill  considers 
the  English  translation  "To  the  chief  Musician"  as  preferable 
to  Luther's  vorzusingen.  The  Polychrome  Bible  translates  this 
word  "For  the  Liturgy,"  and  interprets  the  succeeding  clauses 
as  "the  catch-word  of  an  older  song,  to  the  tune  whereof  this 
Psalm  was  to  be  sung." — Tr. 


MUSIC  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.  103 

Everywhere  and  at  all  times  were  song  and  music 
to  be  found  in  ancient  Israel.  Every  festival  occa- 
sion, every  climax  of  public  or  private  life  was  cele- 
brated with  music  and  song.  Just  as  Homer  called 
singing  and  string  music  "the  consecration  of  the 
meal,"2  so  also  in  ancient  Israel  no  ceremonial  meal 
could  be  thought  of  without  its  accompaniment  of 
either  vocal  or  instrumental  music.  Marriage  cere- 
monies took  place  amid  festive  choruses  with  music 
and  dancing,  and  at  the  bier  of  the  dead  sounded 
the  wail  of  dirge  and  flute.  The  sheep  were  sheared 
and  the  vintage  gathered  to  songs  of  joy  and  dan- 
cing and  tambourine  playing.  The  same  was  true 
in  public  life.  The  election  of  a  king  or  his  corona- 
tion or  betrothal  were  celebrated  with  music;  the 
victorious  warriors  and  generals  were  met  upon 
their  return  home  by  choruses  of  matrons  and  maid- 
ens with  dance  and  song.  So  Miriam  spoke  from 
among  the  choruses  of  women  who  after  the  suc- 
cessful passage  through  the  Red  Sea  went  out  "with 
timbrels  and  with  dances"  (Ex.  xv.  20)  ;  in  the 
same  way  too,  David  was  received  by  matrons  and 
maidens  after  his  successful  battle  with  the  Philis- 
tines (1  Sam.  xviii.  6) ;  and  upon  this  custom  is 
founded  the  frightful  tragedy  of  the  story  of  Jeph- 
thah,  whose  daughter  hastened  in  the  joy  of  her 
heart  to  offer  greeting  and  praise  to  her  victorious 
father,  only  to  be  met  by  death  as  the  fulfilment  of 
his  vow  (Judges  xi). 

How  great  a  place  music  occupied  in  the  worship 

datros. 


104  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

of  ancient  Israel  is  universally  known.  The  entire 
Psalter  is  nothing  else  than  a  collection  of  religious 
songs  which  were  sung  in  the  temple  worship  where 
the  priests  with  their  trumpets  and  the  choruses  of 
music-making  Levites  stand  before  the  eye  of  our 
imagination.  Especially  by  typical  expressions  do 
we  learn  what  a  significance  music  had  for  the  life 
of  the  Israelitic  nation.  There  is  in  Hebrew  a 
saying  which  characterizes  what  we  would  call  be- 
ing "common  talk,"  "the  object  of  gossip/'  "on 
everybody's  tongue,"  in  such  a  way  as  to  indicate 
ditties  sung  in  ridicule.  The  Hebrew  expression 
neginah3  means  "string  music,"  being  derived  from 
the  word  nagan,4  "to  beat,"  "to  touch,"  with  special 
reference  to  instruments,  as  in  striking  the  chords. 
In  Psalm  Ixix.  12,  this  word  neginah  is  used  in  a 
passage  which  literally  reads :  "I  am  the  lute  song 
of  drunkards."  The  Polychrome  Bible  translates 
the  passage:  "I  am  the  subject  of  wine  bibbers' 
ballads."  In  the  same  sense  the  word  is  used  in 
Job  xxx.  9,  with  reference  to  the  frightful  fate  that 
had  befallen  him:  "And  now  am  I  their  song,  yea 
I  am  their  byword."  And  in  Lamentations  we  find 
(iii.  14,  63),  "I  was  a  derision  to  all  my  people; 
and  their  song  all  the  day ....  Behold  their  sitting 
down,  and  their  rising  up;  I  am  their  music."  Here 
the  word  translated  "song"  and  "music"  is  the 
same  in  both  instances.  When  Job's  fortune  changes 
to  evil  he  says  (xxx.  31),  "My  harp  also  is  turned 
to  mourning,  and  my  organ  into  the  voice  of  them 


MUSIC  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.  105 

that  weep."  The  dreadful  desolation  of  Jerusalem 
after  its  destruction  is  described  in  Lamentations 
with  the  words:  "The  elders  have  ceased  from  the 
gate,  the  young  men  from  their  music"  (v.  14). 

Ancient  Israel  must  have  been  recognized  among 
outside  nations  as  well,  as  a  particularly  musical 
people  whose  accomplishments  in  the  art  comprised 
a  definite  profession.  For  this  view  we  have  two 
extremely  characteristic  sources  of  evidence,  one 
from  Assyrian  monuments  and  one  from  the  Old 
Testament.  In  his  account  of  the  unsuccessful  siege 
of  Jerusalem  by  the  Assyrians  in  the  year  701  B.  C. 
Sanherib  tells  us,  according  to  the  translation  of 
Hugo  Winckler,  that  Hezekiah,  king  of  Judah,  be- 
sides all  kinds  of  valuable  articles  sent  also  his 
daughters  and  the  women  of  his  palace  together 
with  men  and  women  singers  to  the  great  king  at 
Nineveh,  while  in  the  touching  Psalm  cxxxvii  we 
learn  that  the  Babylonian  tyrant  demanded  songs 
of  the  Jewish  exiles,  to  cheer  them  up :  "Sing  to  us 
your  beautiful  songs  of  Zion." 

Jewish  tradition  has  given  expression  to  the  fact 
that  music  belongs  to  the  earliest  benefits  and  gifts 
of  the  culture  of  mankind  by  establishing  Jubal  as 
the  inventor  of  music  and  father  of  musicians  as 
early  as  the  seventh  generation  after  the  creation 
(Gen.  iv.  21).  An  important  influence  on  the  hu- 
man heart  was  ascribed  to  music  and  it  was  em- 
ployed to  drive  away  the  evil  spirit  of  melancholy 
when  David  played  before  the  sick  King  Saul  (1 
Sam.  xvi.  23).  It  was  also  used  as  a  spiritual 


106  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

stimulus  by  which  to  acquire  prophetic  inspiration. 
In  Samuel's  time  companies  of  prophets  traversed 
the  land  to  the  music  of  psalter  and  harp  (1  Sam. 
x.  5 ) ,  and  so  the  Prophet  Elisha  to  whom  the  Kings 
Jehoshaphat  and  Jehoram  applied  for  an  oracle 
from  God,  sent  for  a  lute  player,  saying  (2  Kings 
iii.  15)  :  "But  now  bring  me  a  minstrel.  And  it 
came  to  pass,  when  the  minstrel  played,  that  the 
hand  of  the  Lord  came  upon  him." 

An  art  to  which  such  a  powerful  influence  was 
attributed  and  to  whose  most  famous  masters  the 
greatest  king  of  Israel  belonged,  must  have  been 
zealously  practised,  and  we  will  now  undertake  to 
gain  some  idea  of  the  cultivation  of  music  in  an- 
cient Israel.  To  this  end  it  will  be  most  useful  if 
we  will  begin  our  investigation  with  what  the  Old 
Testament  says  about  musical  instruments,  of  course 
with  express  exception  of  the  book  of  Daniel  which 
in  its  third  chapter  mentions  a  large  number  of 
instruments,  using  their  Greek  names  as  naturalized 
words;5  for  these  prove  absolutely  nothing  with 
regard  to  ancient  Hebrew  music  which  at  present  is 
our  only  consideration. 

We  may  with  equal  propriety  exclude  singing 
from  our  investigation.  Song  is  such  an  especially 
instinctive  and  spontaneous  expression  of  the  human 
soul  that  its  presence  is  established  a  priori.  In 
this  connection  the  question  might  be  raised  with 
regard  to  the  construction  of  the  tone  system,  but 
this  can  not  be  answered  without  knowledge  of  the 

8  ffvptyt,  ffa/t/3i5/ci7,  Kidapts,  if/aXrripiov, 


MUSIC  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.  107 

instruments  employed.  Only  I  will  not  neglect  to 
mention  that  as  early  as  in  the  time  of  David  pro- 
fessional male  and  female  singers  provided  music 
during  mealtime.  David  wished  to  take  with  him 
to  Jerusalem  as  a  reward  for  fidelity  the  faithful  old 
Barzillai  who  had  protected  him  at  the  time  of  Ab- 
salom's rebellion.  There  he  would  be  the  daily 
guest  of  the  king;  but  Barzillai  answered  (2  Sam. 
xix.  35),  "I  am  this  day  fourscore  years  old;  and 
can  I  discern  between  good  and  evil?  Can  thy 
servant  taste  what  I  eat  or  what  I  drink?  Can  I 
hear  any  more  the  voice  of  singing  men  and  singing- 
women?  Wherefore  then  should  thy  servant  be 
yet  a  burden  unto  my  lord  the  king?"  Solomon, 
the  Preacher,  also  delighted  in  "men  singers  and 
women  singers  and  the  delights  of  the  sons  of  men, 
as  musical  instruments  and  that  of  all  sorts"  (Eccl. 

ii.  8). 

*       *       * 

Musical  instruments  are  usually  divided  into  three 
classes,  percussive  instruments,  stringed  instruments 
and  wind  instruments,  and  we  shall  also  follow  this 
division.  Of  these  three  classes  the  percussive  in- 
struments are  the  most  primitive.  They  can  not  be 
said  to  possess  any  properly  articulated  tones  but 
sounds  only,  and  their  single  artistic  element  is 
rhythm,  which  however  is  certainly  the  foundation 
and  characteristic  of  music  according  to  the  witty 
utterance  of  Hans  von  Biilow,  "In  the  beginning 
was  the  rhythm." 

Among  percussive  instruments  the  one  most  fre- 


108  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

quently  mentioned  is  the  timbrel  or  tabret  (in  He- 
brew toph6)  which  corresponds  exactly  to  our  tam- 
bourine. Often  they  were  richly  ornamented  so 
that  they  were  frequently  referred  to  as  decorations. 
In  one  of  the  most  splendid  passages  of  the  prophet 
Jeremiah  we  read :  "Again  I  will  build  thee,  and 
thou  shalt  be  built,  O  virgin  of  Israel;  thou  shalt 
again  be  adorned  with  thy  tabrets,  and  shalt  go 
forth  in  the  dances  of  them  that  make  merry" 
( Jer.  xxxi.  4) .  This  passage  is  particularly  character- 
istic of  the  nature  of  the  tabret  in  two  respects ;  first, 
it  usually  appears  in  the  hands  of  women  (in  all  pas- 
sages where  tabret  players  are  expressly  mentioned 
they  are  matrons  and  maidens)  ;  and  secondly  it 
almost  always  appears  in  connection  with  the  dance, 
as  being  swung  in  the  dance  and  marking  its  rhythm. 
We  can  suppose  it  to  have  been  undoubtedly  played 
by  men  only  in  connection  with  the  music  of  the 
companies  of  prophets  in  Samuel's  time,  for  if  we 
read  that  these  prophets  came  down  from  the  sacred 
highplace  with  a  psaltery,  and  a  tabret,  and  a  pipe, 
and  a  harp  before  them  (1  Sam.  x.  5),  we  would 
hardly  think  of  the  musicians  who  accompanied 
these  wild  men  and  played  the  tabrets  before  them, 
as  women. 

The  second  percussive  instrument  is  the  familiar 
cymbal,  which  comes  next  to  our  mind  in  thinking 
of  the  music  of  the  Old  Testament.  With  regard  to 
the  nature  and  character  of  this  instrument  we  can 
gather  all  that  is  essential  from  the  Bible  itself.  In 


MUSIC  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.  109 

the  first  place  the  cymbal  must  have  been  constructed 
of  brass,  for  in  the  familiar  passage,  1  Cor.  xiii,  1, 
the  Apostle  Paul  writes  according  to  the  Greek  text, 
"Though  I  speak  with  the  tongues  of  men  and  of 
angels,  and  have  not  charity  I  am  become  as  sound- 
ing brass,  or  a  tinkling  cymbal."  The  Hebrew  root 
tsalal,7  from  which  both  words  for  cymbal  are  de- 
rived, means  "clatter,"  to  give  forth  a  sharp  pene- 
trating sound;  and  the  word  most  frequently  used, 
metsiltayim*  is  in  the  dual  form  which  is  never  used 
in  the  Hebrew  language  in  its  purely  grammatical 
sense,  but  only  in  the  logical  sense  of  things  which 
occur  in  nature  only  in  pairs.  Now  since  a  penetra- 
ting and  loud  tone  is  repeatedly  attributed  to  the 
cymbals  we  may  consider  them  as  two  metal  plates 
to  be  struck  together  (Fig.  4)  ;  that  is  to  say,  they 
are  the  instruments  which  we  know  as  cymbals  and 
which  are  known  in  German  as  Becken  and  in  Ital- 
ian as  piatti,  and  which  are  most  familiar  to  us  in 
military  music  in  combination  with  a  bass  drum. 

Two  other  percussive  instruments  are  mentioned 
of  which  one  is  still  doubtful.  The  one  which  is 
undoubtedly  certain,  mena'an'im9  (2  Sam.  vi.  5) 
evidently  comes  from  the  root  nua',10  "to  shake," 
and  corresponds  exactly  to  the  Greek  sistrum11  con- 
sisting of  metal  crossbars  upon  which  hang  metal 
rings  that  are  made  to  produce  their  tones  by  shak- 
ing (Fig.  6).  Accordingly  in  current  language  it 
is  the  Turkish  bell-tree,  the  cinelli,  with  which  we 
are  familiar  also  through  German  military  music. 

10yi: 


110  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

Then  too  an  instrument  called  the  shalish12  is 
mentioned  in  the  hands  of  women  together  with 
the  tabret  at  the  triumphal  reception  of  David 
upon  his  return  from  the  conquest  of  the  giant  Go- 
liath (1  Sam.  xviii.  6).  The  word  shalish  being 
derived  from  the  same  root  as  shalosh,  the  number 
"three,"  we  have  been  accustomed  to  identify  it 
with  our  modern  triangle,  but  it  is  a  question 
whether  we  are  justified  in  so  doing.  With  this  in- 
strument we  have  exhausted  the  number  of  percus- 
sive instruments  mentioned  in  the  Old  Testament. 
*  *  * 

It  might  perhaps  be  more  logical  for  us  to  follow 
the  percussive  instruments  at  once  with  the  wind 
instruments,  inasmuch  as  they  are  the  most  primi- 
tive next  to  the  percussive  instruments  because 
horns  of  animals  and  reeds  are  nature's  own  gifts 
to  men,  while  strings  made  from  catgut  are  a  purely 
artificial  product.  But  as  far  as  ancient  Israel  was 
concerned  the  stringed  instruments  were  by  far  the 
most  important.  I  will  remind  my  readers  once 
more  of  the  proverbial  application  of  the  word 
string-music  above  mentioned. 

Accordingly  I  will  next  consider  the  stringed 
instruments,  of  which  the  Old  Testament  mentions 
two,  the  kinnor,13  and  nebel.14  That  both  were  com- 
posed of  strings  drawn  across  wood  (Fig.  9)  may 
be  proved,  in  so  far  as  it  needs  proof,  by  the  fact 
that  according  to  1  Kings  x.  12,  Solomon  ordered 
certain  instruments  of  this  class  intended  for  the 


MUSIC  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.  Ill 

temple  service  to  be  made  out  of  sandal  wood,  which 
he  had  obtained  during  his  famous  visits  to  Ophir. 
Of  these  two  instrument  the  kinnor  is  the  most  im- 
portant, but  I  will  begin  with  the  nebel  because  we 
have  the  more  definite  tradition  with  regard  to  it. 
When  Jerome  tells  us  that  the  nebel,  whose  name 
became  nabla1*  and  nablium  in  Greek  and  Latin, 
possessed  the  form  of  a  Greek  Delta  A,  we  thus 
have  the  triangular  harp  indicated  as  plainly  as 
possible  (Fig.  1).  The  only  objection  that  can  be 
brought  against  this  view,  namely  that  we  repeatedly 
meet  this  instrument  in  the  hands  of  dancers  and 
pilgrims,  is  not  sound.  In  representations  of  ancient 
Egypt,  we  also  have  harps  so  small  that  they  could 
easily  be  carried  (Fig.  2),  and  the  best  commen- 
taries have  lately  shown  us  Assyrian  representa- 
tions where  pointed  harps  with  the  points  at  the 
top  and  fastened  with  a  band  were  likewise  carried 
in  the  hands  of  dancing  processions  (Fig.  10).  If 
the  points  of  these  Assyrian  harps  were  regularly 
at  the  top,  this  will  explain  to  us  better  St.  Jerome's 
comparison  with  the  Greek  Delta  which  of  course 
has  the  point  at  the  top. 

Especially  noteworthy  among  others  is  an  Assy- 
rian representation  (Fig.  15)  in  which  three  pris- 
oners are  being  led  into  exile  by  an  Assyrian  king, 
and  all  three  are  playing  four-stringed  harps  on  the 
march,  but  the  harps  are  so  turned  that  the  broad 
side  is  on  top.  It  is  quite  possible  that  these  figures 
may  represent  captive  Israelites. 


112  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT   ISRAEL. 

There  must  have  been  several  varieties  of  nebel 
(e.  g.,  Fig.  8).  A  harp  of  ten  strings  (dekachord) 
is  repeatedly  mentioned16  in  clear  distinction  from 
the  usual  ones  which  accordingly  must  have  had 
fewer  than  ten  strings,  perhaps  four  as  in  that  As- 
syrian sketch.  An  instrument  of  six  strings  is  the 
interpretation  of  many  exegetists  of  the  word  shu- 
shan17  which  Luther  translates  by  Rosen  in  the 
headings  to  Psalms  xlv,  Ix,  Ixix  and  Ixxx.  When 
we  read  in  Luther's  Bible  in  the  headings  to  Psalms 
vi  and  xii,  "to  be  rendered  on  eight  strings,"18  this 
is  hardly  an  accurate  translation  of  a  musical  term 
with  which  we  shall  occupy  ourselves  later. 

By  far  the  most  important  stringed  instrument, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  the  kinnor.  Its  invention  is 
ascribed  to  Jubal,  and  we  meet  with  it  on  every 
hand  in  the  most  varied  occasions.  The  exiles  hung 
them  on  the  willows  by  the  waters  of  Babylon  (Ps. 
cxxxvii.  2)  and  according  to  a  passage  in  the  book 
of  Isaiah,  which  to  be  sure  comes  from  a  much  later 
date,  probably  the  Greek  period,  they  are  used  by 
harlots  for  the  public  allurement  of  men  (Is.  xxiii. 
16). 

For  us  the  kinnor  has  indeed  a  conspicuous  inter- 
est and  a  particular  significance  in  that  it  was  the 
instrument  of  King  David,  by  which  the  son  of 
Jesse  subdued  the  melancholy  of  King  Saul,  and 


18  Ps.  xxxiii.  2  ;  xcii.  4  ;  cxliv.  9. 

"The  Polychrome  Bible  here  understands  "in  the  eighth 
[mode]"  or  key.  The  authorized  version  again  resorts  to  a 
transcription  of  the  Hebrew,  "On  Neginoth  upon  Sheminith." 
Dr.  Cornill's  view  is  given  on  page  123.  —  Tr. 


MUSIC  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.  113 

which  he  played  when  dancing  before  the  ark.  We 
are  particularly  fortunate  in  possessing  an  authentic 
copy  of  this  instrument  on  an  Egyptian  monument. 
On  the  tomb  of  Chnumhotep,  the  Prince  of  Middle 
Egypt  at  Beni  Hassan  in  the  time  of  Pharaoh  Usur- 
tesen  II  of  the  12th  dynasty,  which  can  not  be 
placed  later  than  2300  B.  C,  a  procession  of  Semitic 
nomads  is  represented  which  Chnumhotep  is  leading 
into  the  presence  of  Pharaoh  in  order  to  obtain  the 
royal  permission  for  a  dwelling  place  in  Egypt.  In 
this  procession  a  man  who  comes  immediately  be- 
hind the  women  and  children  is  carrying  by  a  leather 
thong  an  instrument  which  we  can  not  fail  to  recog- 
nize as  the  kinnor  (Fig.  3,  cf.  also  Fig.  5).  It  is 
a  board  with  four  rounded  corners  and  with  a 
sounding  hole  in  the  upper  part  over  which  eight 
strings  are  stretched.  The  man  picks  the  strings 
with  the  fingers  of  his  left  hand  while  he  strikes 
them  with  a  so-called  plectrum,19  a  small  stick  held 
in  his  right  hand. 

That  the  Israelites  also  played  their  stringed  in- 
struments partly  with  their  fingers  and  partly  by 
means  of  such  a  plectrum  we  might  conclude  from 
the  two  characteristically  different  expressions  for 
playing  on  strings :  zamar20  "to  pluck,"  and  nagan,21 
"  to  strike."  All  antiquity  was  unacquainted  with 
the  use  of  bows  to  produce  sound  from  stringed 
instruments  of  any  kind. 

Hence  the  kinnor  may  first  of  all  be  compared 
to  our  zither,  except  that  it  apparently  had  no  hollow 


114  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

space  underneath  and  no  special  sounding  board. 
The  stringed  instruments  as  they  are  represented 
in  countless  different  varieties  on  Jewish  coins 
(Figs.  13  and  14)  do  not  correspond  either  with 
the  nebel  or  the  kinnor  but  much  more  closely  re- 
semble the  Greek  lyre22  and  therefore  have  little 
value  with  reference  to  the  Old  Testament. 

We  might  also  consider  the  gittith  a  stringed  in- 
strument where  the  headings  to  Psalms  viii,  Ixxxi, 
and  Ixxxiv,  read  "upon  Gittith."23  But  it  is  very 
doubtful  whether  the  word  gittith24  translates  a 
musical  instrument  and  not  rather  a  particular  kind 
of  song  or  melody.  In  either  case  it  will  be  better 
not  to  confuse  the  temple  orchestra  of  ancient  Israel 

with  the  gittith. 

*       #       * 

We  have  still  to  consider  the  wind  instruments. 
One  of  these  whose  invention  is  likewise  ascribed  to 
Jubal  is  call  the  'ugab.25  Besides  in  Genesis  iv.  21, 
it  is  mentioned  twice  in  the  book  of  Job,  and  once 
in  Psalms  cl,  in  which  all  instruments  and  every- 
thing that  hath  breath  are  summoned  to  give  praise 
and  thanksgiving  to  God  (Ps.  cl.  4;  Job  xxi.  12; 
xxx.  31).  This  (ugab  has  been  regarded  as  a  bag- 

"Xfya. 

"The  Polychrome  Bible  comments:  "We  do  not  know 
whether  Gittith  means  'belonging  to  the  city  of  Gath/  which 
probably  had  been  destroyed  before  the  Babylonian  Exile,  or 
'belonging  to  a  wine-press'  (=  Song  for  the  Vintage?),  or 
whether  it  denotes  a  mode  or  key,  or  a  musical  instrument/' 
— Tr. 

"rvro 


25  DJiy    It  is  translated  in  the  authorized  version  by  "organ," 
but  in  Ps.  cl.  4,  in  the  margin,  as  "pipe." — Tr. 


MUSIC  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.  115 

pipe  and  we  may  be  assured  that  it  was  a  very  primi- 
tive instrument.  It  has  been  customary  to  translate 
the  word  by  "shawm";  Luther  calls  it  "pipes" 
(Pfeifen).  But  Mr.  Phillips  Barry26  proves  to  my 
satisfaction  that  the  traditional  rendering  of  'ugab 
as  "bagpipe"  rests  upon  an  error.  Just  what  the 
'ugab  is,  however,  Mr.  Barry  himself  is  not  able 
to  say./ 

The  j  most  important  reed  instrument,  the  flute, 
we  find  referred  to  as  khalilf7  only  in  five  passages : 
with  the"  thundering  music  of  the  prophets  (1  Sam. 
x.  5) ;  at  the  proclamation  of  Solomon  as  the  suc- 
cessor of  David  (1  Kings  i.  40)  ;  twice  in  the  book 
of  Isaiah,  in  connection  with  the  dinner  music  of 
the  rich  gluttons  and  winebibbers  at  Jerusalem  (v. 
12),  and  also  "when  one  goeth  with  the  pipe  to 
come  into  the  mountain  of  the  Lord"  (xxx.  29)  ; 
and  finally  once  in  the  book  of  Jeremiah  as  the  in- 
strument of  mourning  and  lamentation,  where  we 
read  (xlviii.  36),  "Therefore  mine  heart  shall  sound 
for  Moab  like  pipes."  In  this  connection  we  are 
reminded  to  some  extent  of  the  awakening  of  Jai- 
rus's  little  daughter.  When  Jesus  reached  the  house 
of  mourning  he  found  there  before  him  flute  play- 
ers and  weeping  women28  (Matt.  ix.  23;  Mark  v. 
38). 

38  See  his  brief  article  entitled  "The  Bagpipe  not  a  Hebrew 
Instrument"  in  The  Monist,  XIX,  July,  1909,  pp.  459-461. 

27  ^5>n    Translated  in  the  authorized  version  by  "pipe." — Tr. 

28  The  English  version  speaks  simply  of  "minstrels  and  the 
people  making  a  noise,"  without  translating  the  kind  of  instru- 
ment used. — Tr. 


116  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

Of  the  construction  of  these  flutes  the  Old  Testa- 
ment tells  us  nothing  and  leaves  nothing  to  be  in- 
ferred, and  yet  we  imagine  that  the  khalil  was  not 
a  transverse  flute  but  probably  a  sort  of  beaked 
flute,  thus  corresponding  much  more  closely  to  our 
clarinet.  We  find  the  transverse  flutes  only  in  very 
isolated  cases  on  Egyptian  monuments,  while  on  the 
other  hand  we  find  the  beaked  flutes  regularly  in  an 
overwhelming  majority  with  the  Assyrians,  and  in- 
deed often  composed  of  two  tubes  as  was  the  com- 
mon form  among  the  Greeks  ( Fig.  11).  But  nearer 
than  this  we  can  not  affirm  anything  with  regard 
to  their  use  in  ancient  Israel. 

We  find  animal  horns  mentioned  twice  among 
wind  instruments,  as  ram's  horns,  once  indeed  in 
connection  with  the  theophany  of  Sinai  (Ex.  xix. 
13)  and  once  at  the  capture  of  Jericho  (Josh.  vi.  5). 
The  term  "horn,"  qeren,29  for  a  musical  instrument 
comes  under  Greek  influence  again  in  the  book  of 
Daniel.  On  the  other  hand  in  Old  Testament  times 
only  the  two  forms  shofar30  and  hatsotserah31  were 
in  common  use.  On  the  triumphal  arch  of  Titus 
(Figs.  16  and  17)  and  on  two  Jewish  coins  (Fig. 
18)  we  have  esthetic  representations  of  the  hatsot- 
serah which  was  peculiarly  the  instrument  of  wor- 
ship and  was  blown  by  the  priests.  According  to 
Num.  x,  two  hatsotseroth  (the  word  always  occurs 
in  the  plural  in  the  Hebrew  with  one  exception) 
were  to  be  fashioned  out  of  silver  by  skilful  handi- 
work and  there  the  priests  made  use  of  them  to  call 
29  HP 


MUSIC  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.  117 

together  the  people  and  to  announce  the  feasts  and 
new  moons.  That  these  instruments  in  the  ancient 
temple  were  indeed  of  silver  we  learn  also  from  an 
incidental  notice  in  2  Kings  xii.  13,  in  the  reign 
of  King  Joash.  According  to  many  pictures  they 
are  rather  long  and  slender  and  perfectly  straight, 
widening  gradually  in  front  into  a  bell  mouth,  hence 
the  very  instruments  which  the  pictures  of  ancient 
art  used  to  place  in  the  hands  of  angels,  and  which 
may  best  be  compared  with  the  so-called  clarion  of 
ancient  music,  a  kind  of  clarinet  made  of  metal. 

The  wind  instrument  which  is  second  in  impor- 
tance, the  shofar,  still  plays  a  part  in  the  worship 
of  the  synagogue,  but  in  the  Old  Testament,  as  far 
as  religious  use  is  concerned  it  is  far  behind  the 
hatsotserah.  According  to  Jerome  the  horn  of  the 
shofar  is  bent  backward  in  contrast  to  the  straight 
horn  of  the  hatsotserah.  It  is  especially  the  instru- 
ment for  sounding  signals  of  alarm,  for  which  pur- 
pose it  was  widely  used.  According  to  law  this 
trumpet  was  to  be  sounded  on  the  day  of  atonement 
every  forty-ninth  year,  the  year  of  jubilee  (Lev. 
xxv.  9).  There  is  a  noteworthy  passage  in  the  book 
of  Isaiah  where  it  says  that  on  that  day  at  the  sound- 
ing of  the  great  trumpet  (shofar)  all  the  Jews  scat- 
tered and  exiled  throughout  the  whole  world  shall 
come  back  to  worship  in  the  holy  mount  at  Jerusa- 
lem (Is.  xxvii.  13)  ;  and  this  eschatological  and 
apocalytical  passage  has  also  become  significant  with 
regard  to  the  New  Testament,  for  from  it  the  Apos- 
tle Paul  takes  the  trump  of  the  last  judgment  by 


118  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

whose  sound  the  dead  will  arise  according  to  1  Cor. 
xv.  52,  and  1  Thess.  iv.  16.  (Cf.  also  Matt.  xxiv. 
31.)  According  to  the  prophet  Zechariah  the  Lord 
of  Sabaoth  himself  shall  blow  the  trumpet  (shofar) 
at  the  last  judgment  (Zech.  ix.  14). 

Whether  the  ancient  Israelites  really  played  melo- 
dies or  signals  in  the  natural  tones  of  the  bugle 
or  the  signal  trumpet  we  do  not  know.  We  have 
only  two  characteristically  different  expressions  for 
the  blowing  on  the  shofar  and  hatsotserah,  viz., 
"blow"32  on  the  instruments  and  "howl"33  on  them. 
By  the  first  word  is  meant  to  make  a  noise  by  short 
sharp  blasts  and  by  the  last,  by  long  drawn  out  ring- 
ing notes.  This  is  what  we  learn  from  the  Old 
Testament  about  musical  instruments  of  ancient  Is- 
rael and  their  use. 

*       *       * 

The  character  of  the  music  of  ancient  Israel  we 
must  consider  in  general  as  merry  and  gay,  almost 
boisterous,  so  that  it  seemed  advisable  to  refrain 
from  music  in  the  presence  of  men  who  were  ill- 
tempered  or  moody.  In  the  Proverbs  of  Solomon 
xxv.  20,  we  have  the  expressive  simile,  "as  vinegar 
upon  nitre  so  is  he  that  singeth  songs  to  an  heavy 
heart."  Music  served  most  conspicuously  and  was 
of  first  importance  in  the  joys  of  life  as,  for  in- 
stance, dinner  music,  dance  music,  and  feast  music, 
so  that  the  prophet  Jeremiah  speaks  of  it  as  the 
voice  of  mirth  and  the  voice  of  gladness  (Jer.  vii. 
34;  xvi.  9;  xxv.  10;  xxxiii.  11).  Even  ritual  music 
taka'  *  nn  herfa 


MUSIC  IN  THE  OLD,  TESTAMENT.  119 

seems  to  have  borne  a  worldly  character  in  ancient 
Israel,  so  that  through  the  prophet  Amos,  God  ad- 
dresses the  nation  in  words  of  wrath:  "Take  thou 
away  from  me  the  noise  of  thy  songs ;  for  I  will  not 
hear  the  melody  of  thy  viols"  (v.  23).  Amos  uses 
here  exactly  the  same  strong  expression  with  which 
Ezekiel  (xxiii.  42)  describes  the  singing  of  aban- 
doned women  in  Bacchanalian  orgies,  and  (xxvi. 
13)  the  sound  of  harps  in  the  luxurious  commercial 
center  of  Tyre. 

Since  in  all  ancient  reports  men  and  women  sing- 
ers are  named  together,  it  is  therefore  most  prob- 
able that  women  took  part  in  the  ritual  service 
of  ancient  Israel.  A  doubtful  passage  in  Amos 
should  according  to  all  probability  be  translated 
"Then  will  the  women  singers  in  the  temple  howl" 
(Amos  viii.  3),  and  this  circumstance  may  have  es- 
pecially aroused  the  anger  of  the  puritanical  and  un- 
taught herdsman  of  Tekoa.  But  that  Amos  may 
have  had  a  justifiable  foundation  for  his  repugnance 
to  the  singing  of  women  became  clear  to  me  when  in 
the  spring  of  1905  I  attended  the  International  Con- 
gress of  Orientalists  at  Algiers  as  official  delegate 
of  the  Prussian  Government  and  had  an  opportunity 
for  the  first  time  to  hear  modern  Arabian  music. 
On  the  second  evening  of  the  Congress  a  lecture 
was  offered  to  us  on  "La  musique  arabe"  illustrated 
by  concrete  examples.  At  the  left  of  the  lecturer 
was  a  group  of  male,  and  on  the  right  a  group  of 
female  musicians,  which  at  his  signal  performed 
their  corresponding  parts.  But  since  no  provision 


120  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT   ISRAEL. 

was  made  for  reserved  seats,  then  or  at  any  other 
session  of  the  Congress,  there  ensued  a  battle  of  el- 
bows in  open  competition,  and  the  hall  was  much 
too  small  for  all  the  members  of  the  Congress,  which 
seemed  to  be  the  chronic  state  of  things  in  Algiers. 
Hence  with  my  particular  gift  always  and  every- 
where to  get  the  worst  place,  I  was  pressed  against 
the  farthest  wall,  where  it  was  necessary  in  this 
instance  to  stand  for  two  good  hours  wedged  in  a 
fearfully  crowded  corner,  and  so,  greatly  to  my 
sorrow,  many  occurrences  escaped  me. 

Still  the  impression  of  the  whole  was  decidedly 
striking,  presumably  because  of  the  difference  be- 
tween male  and  female  singing.  Never  did  both 
groups  perform  together  in  a  mixed  chorus  (just 
as  Orientals  do  not  recognize  a  dance  between  men 
and  women)  but  each  group  sang  by  itself.  The 
song  and  music  of  the  men  was  very  solemn  and 
dignified,  in  slow  time  without  a  distinct  rhythm 
or  melodious  cadence,  but  in  a  sort  of  recitative 
(Sprechgesang)  which  is  now  in  vogue  in  the  latest 
music.  The  music  of  the  women  was  very  different. 
In  their  performance  all  was  fire  and  life.  They 
sang  in  pronounced  melody  with  sharply  accentu- 
ated rhythm  in  a  passionate  tempo,  and  they  treated 
the  instruments  upon  which  they  accompanied  their 
singing  with  incredible  expression.  Not  only  throat 
and  fingers  but  the  whole  person  in  all  its  members 
was  engaged  in  making  music.  If  we  may  imagine 
the  women  who  sang  in  ancient  Israel  entirely  or 
approximately  like  their  modern  feminine  counter- 


MUSIC  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.  121 

parts,  it  is  easy  to  understand  how  a  man  like  the 
prophet  Amos  at  the  outbreak  of  such  a  band  in  the 
temple  at  Bethel  might  have  received  the  impression 
of  a  "variety  show"  in  church.  And  another  thing 
occurred  to  me  in  connection  with  the  songs  of  those 
women,  that  according  to  the  language  of  music 
they  are  all  composed  in  minor,  and  indeed  only  in 
the  two  scales  of  D  Minor  and  A  Minor,  which  with 
their  characteristic  intervals  in  the  case  of  the  so- 
called  "church"  keys  have  been  named  Doric  and 
Aeolic, — so  then  we  see  that  just  as  a  deep  meaning 
often  lies  in  the  games  of  children,  the  familiar 
German  pun  that  the  trumpets  of  the  Israelites  be- 
fore the  walls  of  Jericho  were  blown  in  the  key  of 
D  Minor  (D  moll)  because  they  demolished  those 
walls,  was  not  made  entirely  out  of  whole  cloth. 

This  brings  us  quite  naturally  to  the  question 
whether  or  not  the  music  of  ancient  Israel  had  a 
tone  system  and  a  definite  scale.  When  even  on  the 
earliest  Egyptian  and  Assyrian  monuments  the 
pointed  harps  have  strings  of  constantly  diminish- 
ing length  and  the  flutes  have  soundholes  where  the 
players  manipulate  their  fingers,  it  is  absolutely 
necessary  for  us  to  investigate  this  question,  for 
these  pictorial  illustrations  testify  to  definite  tones 
of  varying  pitch  and  in  that  case  a  fixed  scale  must 
have  previously  existed. 

To  be  sure  I  must  at  the  outset  abandon  one 
means  of  determining  this  scale,  and  that  is  accent. 
Besides  the  vowel  signs  our  Hebrew  texts  have  also 
so-called  accents  which  perform  a  threefold  func- 


122  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

tion;  first  as  accent  in  its  proper  signification  to 
indicate  the  stress  of  voice,  then  as  punctuation 
marks,  and  finally  as  musical  notation.  This  accent 
also  denotes  a  definite  melisma,  or  a  definite  cadence 
according  to  which  the  emphasized  word  in  the  in- 
toned discourse  of  the  synagogue  (the  so-called 
niggun34)  was  to  be  recited.  The  learned  bishop 
of  the  Moravian  Brethren  and  counsellor  of  the 
Brandenburg  consistory,  Daniel  Ernst  Jablonski,  in 
the  preface  to  the  Berlin  edition  of  1699  of  the  Old 
Testament  made  under  his  patronage,  undertook  to 
rewrite  these  accents  according  to  the  custom  of  the 
Sefardim  (that  is,  of  the  Spanish-Portuguese  Jews) 
in  modern  notes  and  has  thus  rewritten  in  notes  one 
long  coherent  passage  in  Genesis  (xlviii.  15,  16), 
which  I  sometimes  have  occasion  to  sing  to  my 
students  at  college.  But  this  niggun,  as  evidence 
has  lately  been  found  to  prove,  is  of  Christian  ori- 
gin, an  imitation  of  the  so-called  neumes,35  used  in 
the  Greco-Syrian  communities  of  the  Orient  in  re- 
citing the  Gospels,  and  accordingly  has  been  handed 
down  from  the  church  to  the  synagogue,  and  so  for 
ancient  Israel  and  its  music  has  no  meaning; — at 
least  directly,  for  the  church  was  essentially  under 
Greek  influence,  and  Greek  music  must  not  be  identi- 
fied with  that  of  ancient  Israel,  nor  must  the  latter 
be  constructed  according  to  the  former.  The  only 
trace,  although  an  uncertain  one,  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment itself  appears  in  the  expression  which  I  have 
already  mentioned,  and  which  Luther  translates  "on 

84    jj  **  retf/uora. 


MUSIC  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.  123 

eight  strings"  (auf  acht  Saiten).  But  in  Hebrew 
the  word  is  sheminith,*6  meaning  "ordinal  number" 
so  that  we  must  not  translate  "on  eight"  but  "on 
(or  after)  the  eighth"  Accordingly  a  musician 
can  hardly  do  otherwise  than  insert  this  "eighth" 
in  the  familiar  octave,  the  foundation  of  our  tone- 
system,  and  assume  that  the  ancient  Israelites  also 
had  a  scale  of  seven  intervals  so  that  the  eighth 
becomes  the  same  note  but  placed  an  octave  higher. 
And  this  interpretation  has  also  a  support  in  the  Old 
Testament.  Our  principal  source  for  the  music  of 
ancient  Israel  is  the  biblical  book  of  Chronicles 
which  has  evidently  been  written  by  a  specialist,  a 
Levitical  musician  of  the  temple,  who  offers  us  a 
complete  series  of  technical  statements  with  regard 
to  ancient  musical  culture.  So  we  read  in  one  of 
the  most  important  passages  (1  Chron.  xv.  20,  21) 
that  a  circle  of  temple  musicians  played  upon  the 
nebel,  the  harp,  al  alamoth37  literally  translated 
"after  the  manner  of  maidens,"  and  another  on  the 
kinnor,  the  lute,  al  hashsheminith,3*  literally,  "after 
the  eighth."  By  the  designation  "after  the  manner 
of  maidens"  can  only  be  meant  the  high  clear  voices 
of  women,  that  is  to  say  soprano,  and  then  it  is  of 
course  natural  to  see  in  the  "eighth"  the  deeper 
voices  of  the  men  an  octave  lower.  If  this  combina- 
tion is  correct,  and  it  is  at  least  very  promising,  we 
see  clearly  proven  in  it  the  existence  of  a  scale  of 
seven  intervals,  even  if  we  know  nothing  about  the 
particular  intervals  and  their  relation  to  each  other. 


124  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

Another  characteristic  of  the  music  of  ancient 
Israel  is  that  it  does  not  take  into  account  pure  in- 
strumental music,  the  so-called  absolute  music,  but 
on  the  contrary  regards  instruments  simply  as  ac- 
companiment for  singing.  The  usage  of  the  lan- 
guage is  significant  with  regard  to  this  point.  The  He- 
brew calls  instruments  kele  hashshir,39  "instruments 
of  song"  and  calls  musicians  simply  "singers";  for 
it  has  long  been  observed  that  in  the  passages  which 
treat  of  singers  in  the  proper  sense  a  particular  form 
of  the  participle  is  always  found,  the  so-called  Kal,4° 
while  another  participial  form  of  the  same  root,  the 
so-called  Polel,41  designates  musicians  in  general. 
Accordingly  Israel  considers  the  essential  nature  and 
the  foundation  of  all  music  to  be  in  song,  in  Melos. 
And  what  an  ingenious  instinct,  what  an  artistic 
delicacy  of  feeling  is  given  utterance  in  this  desig- 
nation! The  end  pursued  by  modern  music  is  to 
compress  the  living  human  voice  into  a  dead  in- 
strument, while  the  great  musicians  of  all  times 
have  considered  it  their  task  rather  to  let  the  in- 
struments sing,  to  put  a  living  human  soul  into 
the  dead  wood,  metal,  or  sheepgut.  Such  was  the 
case  with  the  people  of  Israel. 

Likewise  the  music  of  ancient  Israel  knew  noth- 
ing of  polyphony  which  is  an  abomination  to  Orien- 
tals in  general.  And  to  be  sure  must  not  polyphony 
be  designated  as  a  two-edged  sword  ?  For  counter- 
point is  commonly  understood  to  come  in  exactly  at 
the  point  when  the  musician  lacks  melody  and  con- 


MUSIC  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.  125 

ception.  And  what  is  even  the  most  artistic  poly- 
phony of  a  Richard  Strauss  or  a  Max  Reger  com- 
pared to  the  heavenly  melody  of  the  larghetto  in 
Mozart's  clarinet  quintet!  What  the  chronicler 
considers  an  ideal  performance  is  stated  in  a  charac- 
teristic passage :  "It  came  even  to  pass,  as  the  trum- 
peters and  singers  were  as  one,  to  make  one  sound 
to  be  heard  in  praising  and  thanking  the  Lord" 
(2  Chron.  v.  13).  Hence  a  single  powerful  unisono 
is  the  ideal  of  the  music  of  ancient  Israel. 
*  *  * 

The  passage  of  Chronicles  above  quoted,  leads  us 
to  the  dedication  of  Solomon's  temple.  And  since 
Israel  is  the  nation  of  religion,  and  as  we  are  more- 
over best  informed  by  the  chronicler  just  about 
temple  music,  we  shall  in  conclusion  make  an  at- 
tempt to  sketch  a  picture  of  the  temple  music  of 
ancient  Israel. 

With  regard  to  the  orchestra  of  the  temple,  the 
lack  of  wood-wind  instruments  is  noteworthy.  Even 
the  flute  is  mentioned  only  once  in  connection  with 
a  procession  of  pilgrims  (Is.  xxx.  29  ),42  but  never 
in  connection  with  the  worship  proper. 

Since  the  trumpets  were  reserved  for  the  use  of 
the  priests  in  giving  signals  at  certain  definite  places 
in  the  ritual,  the  temple  orchestra  consisted  only  of 
stringed  instruments,  harps  and  lutes,  so  that  the 

42  The  Polychrome  Bible  reads  "Joy  of  heart  like  his  who 
sets  forth  to  the  flute  to  go  to  the  mountain  of  Yahveh,"  but 
in  the  authorized  version  the  instrument  is  called  "pipe"  and 
not  "flute."— Tr. 


126  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

music  of  the  temple  is  repeatedly  called  simply 
"string-music,"  neginah.43 

And  to  these  stringed  instruments  cymbals  also 
may  be  added.  These  three  instruments,  cymbals, 
harps  and  lutes,  are  always  mentioned  in  this  order 
as  played  by  the  Levites. 

The  Levites  were  again  divided  into  three  groups 
after  David's  three  singing  masters,  Asaph,  Heman 
and  Jeduthun  (sometimes  Ethan).  Since  these 
three  names  always  occur  in  the  same  order  we 
are  led  to  combine  the  corresponding  systems  and 
to  give  to  Asaph  the  cymbals,  to  Heman  the  harp, 
and  to  Jeduthun  the  lute;  and  for  the  first  and 
third  of  these  combinations  we  have  corroborative 
quotations :  Once  in  1  Chronicles  xvi.  5,  it  is  ex- 
pressly mentioned  as  a  function  of  Asaph,  that  he 
"made  a  sound  with  cymbals";  and  again  in  1 
Chronicles  xxv.  3,  Jeduthun  is  mentioned  as  he  "who 
prophesied  with  a  lute."44  This  shows  us  how  to 
understand  the  heading  of  the  three  Psalms  xxxix, 
Ivii,  and  Ixxvii,  "To  Jeduthun."45  These  evidently 
are  to  be  accompanied  only  by  Jeduthun  with  the 


In  the  headings  of  Psalms  iv,  vi,  liv,  Iv,  Ixi,  Ixvii. 
and  Ixxvi.    Cf.  also  Is.  xxxviii.  20;  and  Hab.  iii.  19. 

44  The  English  version  translates  this  also  as  "harp." — Tr. 

45  Wellhausen  in  his  Notes  to  the  Polychrome  Edition  of 
The  Book  of  Psalms  thus  explains  the  word  which  he  trans- 
lates as  "for    (or  from)    Jeduthun."       Jeduthun  like  Korah 
and  Asaph,  was  the  name  of  a  post-Exilic  guild  of  temple- 
musicians. ..  .Hence  the  Psalms  may  have  been  attributed  to 
them   originally   in   just   the   same   way  that   many   German 
hymns  are  attributed  to  the  Moravian  Brethren :  they  belonged 
originally  to  a  private  collection,  and  subsequently  found  their 
way  into  the  common  hymn-book." — Tr. 


MUSIC  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.  127 

lute,  and  this  agrees  with  the  grave  and  somber 
character  of  the  three  psalms. 

This  indicates  that  even  in  the  most  primitive  be- 
ginnings there  was  an  art  of  instrumentation  which 
took  into  consideration  the  timbre  of  the  instru- 
ments, and  as  a  modern  analogy  we  might  point 
out  certain  priestly  passages  in  "The  Magic  Flute." 
The  wonderful  effect  of  these  passages  rests  on  the 
fact  that  Mozart  neglected  the  common  usage  (which 
would  have  combined  two  violins  with  a  tenor  and 
bass  viol  in  the  string  quartette)  and  left  out  the 
violins,  assigning  the  quartette  exclusively  to  the 
viols.  But  just  here  in  this  division  of  instruments 
is  a  point  expressly  handed  down  by  tradition, 
which  must  appear  strange  to  us:  to  Asaph  who 
is  always  mentioned  in  the  first  place  and  apparently 
acts  as  the  first  orchestra  leader,  is  assigned  only 
the  ringing  brass  of  the  cymbals.  But  these  cym- 
bals apparently  served  the  purpose  of  a  baton  in 
the  hand  of  a  modern  orchestra  leader  marking  the 
rhythm  with  their  sharp  penetrating  tone  and  so 
holding  together  the  whole.  The  trumpets  of  the 
priests  were  to  serve  the  people  as  "a  memorial 
before  God"  (Numbers  x.  9-10).  Hence  they  are 
in  some  measure  a  knocking  at  the  door  of  God, 
and  apparently  have  the  same  function  as  the  bell 
at  a  Catholic  mass  in  giving  the  people  the  signal 
to  fall  upon  their  knees  (2  Chron.  xxix.  27-28). 
The  supposition  has  been  expressed  that  the  puzzling 
selah  in  the  Psalms,  which  undoubtedly  had  a  mu- 
sical liturgical  sense  and  indicated  an  interruption 


128  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

of  the  singing  by  instruments,  marked  the  places 
where  the  priests  blew  their  trumpets — an  assump- 
tion which  can  be  neither  proved  nor  disproved. 

What  now  is  the  case  with  regard  to  the  temple 
song  which  of  course  was  the  singing  of  psalms? 
We  learn  from  Chronicles  that  the  later  usage  re- 
moved women's  voices  from  the  service  and  recog- 
nized only  Levitical  singers.  In  a  remarkable  pas- 
sage (Ps.  Ixviii.  25)  which  describes  a  procession 
of  the  second  temple  the  women  still  come  into 
prominence  as  "damsels  playing  with  timbrels"  but 
ordinarily  only  male  singers  and  lute  players  are 
mentioned.  But  if  Psalm  xlvi,  for  instance,  were 
sung  according  to  its  inscription  "after  the  manner 
of  maidens,"46  we  must  assume  that  the  men  sang 
in  falsetto,  just  as  not  so  very  long  ago  when 
women's  voices  were  in  the  same  manner  excluded 
from  the  service  of  the  Evangelical  church,  falsetto 
was  regularly  practised  and  belonged  to  the  art  of 
church  music. 

With  regard  to  the  melodies  to  which  the  Psalms 
were  sung,  here  again,  as  it  seems,  we  have  the  same 
process  as  in  the  German  church  songs.  When  we 
find  ascribed  to  the  Psalms  as  melodies  the  words 
"To  the  Tune  of  the  Winepress,"47  Psalms  viii, 
Ixxxi,  Ixxxiv;  "To  the  Tune  of  Lilies,"48  Psalms 

48  This  part  of  the  heading  to  Psalm  xlvi,  Luther  translates, 
"Von  der  Jugend,  vorsusingen" ;  the  authorized  English  ver- 
sion gives  "a  song  upon  Alamoth" ;  and  the  Polychrome  Bible 
says  "with  Elamite  instruments." — Tr. 

47  JVnafl  ty  if  derived  from  f)3  winepress. 

48  D wit?  5y 


MUSIC  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.  129 

xlv,  Ix,  Ixix,  Ixxx  ;  "To  the  Tune  of  The  Hind  of 
the  Dawn,"*>  Psalm  xxii;  "To  the  Tune  of  The 
Dove  of  Far-off  Islands,"50  Psalm  Ivi  ;  or  according 
to  the  somewhat  doubtful  interpretation,  Psalm  v, 
"To  the  Tune  of  A  Swarm  of  Bees/'51  we  can  not 
doubt  that  they  originally  were  secular  melodies, 
folk-songs  which  found  admittance  into  the  wor- 
ship of  the  people. 

With  regard  to  the  arrangement  of  the  temple  or- 
chestra the  chronicler  is  again  able  to  give  us  in- 
formation. The  singing  Levites  stood  at  the  east  end 
of  the  bronze  altar  of  burnt  sacrifice  (2  Chron. 
v.  12)  opposite  the  priests  who  sounded  the  trum- 
pets (2  Chron.  vii.  6)  ;  that  is  to  say  to  the  west  of 
them.  This  statement  to  be  sure  involves  difficulties 
since  the  whole  temple  was  oriented  from  west  to 
east  so  that  if  the  Levites  stood  before  the  altar 
they  must  have  obstructed  the  approach  to  its  steps 
and  the  priests  were  entirely  concealed  behind  it. 
But  we  must  not  on  this  account  doubt  the  definite 
statement  of  so  competent  an  authority  as  the  chron- 
icler. 

Of  a  musical  liturgical  service  in  the  ancient  tem- 
ple we  have  two  vivid  descriptions  :  one  from  the 
chronicler  and  one  from  Jesus  Sirach.  The  chron- 
icler gives  us  the  following  description  of  a  Pass- 


50     D^pm  D$K  njV  £yfae  D^>N  being  regarded  as  an  error  in 
writing  D^K 


130  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT   ISRAEL. 

over  in  the  first  year  of  the  reign  of  King  Hezekiah 
(2  Chron.  xxix.  26-30)  : 

"And  the  Levites  stood  with  the  instruments  of 
David  and  the  priests  with  the  trumpets. 

"And  Hezekiah  commanded  to  offer  the  burnt 
offering  upon  the  altar.  And  when  the  burnt  offer- 
ing began,  the  song  of  the  Lord  began  also  with  the 
trumpets,  and  with  the  instruments  ordained  by 
David  king  of  Israel. 

"And  all  the  congregation  worshiped,  and  the 
singers  sang,  and  the  trumpeters  sounded :  and  all 
this  continued  until  the  burnt  offering  was  finished. 

"And  when  they  had  made  an  end  of  offering,  the 
king  and  all  that  were  present  with  him  bowed 
themselves,  and  worshiped. 

"Moreover  Hezekiah  the  king  and  the  princes 
commanded  the  Levites  to  sing  praise  unto  the  Lord 
with  the  words  of  David,  and  of  Asaph  the  seer. 
And  they  sang  praises  with  gladness,  and  they 
bowed  their  heads  and  worshiped." 

And  Jesus  Sirach  says  in  describing  the  installa- 
tion of  Simon,  a  contemporary,  as  high  priest, 
(Ecclesiasticus  1.  15-21)  : 

"He  stretched  out  his  hand  to  the  cup,  and  poured 
of  the  blood  of  the  grape,  he  poured  out  at  the  foot 
of  the  altar  a  sweet-smelling  savor  unto  the  most 
high  King  of  all. 

"Then  shouted  the  sons  of  Aaron,  and  sounded 
the  silver  trumpets,  and  made  a  great  noise  to  be 
heard,  for  a  remembrance  before  the  most  High. 

"Then  all  the  people  together  hasted,   and   fell 


MUSIC  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.  131 

down  to  the  earth  upon  their  faces  to  worship  their 
Lord  God  Almighty,  the  most  High. 

"The  singers  also  sang  praises  with  their  voices, 
with  great  variety  of  sounds  was  there  made  sweet 
melody. 

"And  the  people  besought  the  Lord,  the  most 
High,  by  prayer  before  him  that  is  merciful,  till  the 
solemnity  of  the  Lord  was  ended,  and  they  had 
finished  the  service. 

"Then  he  went  down,  and  lifted  up  his  hands 
over  the  whole  congregation  of  the  children  of 
Israel,  to  give  the  blessing  of  the  Lord  with  his  lips, 
and  to  rejoice  in  his  name. 

"And  they  bowed  themselves  down  to  worship  the 
second  time,  that  they  might  receive  a  blessing  from 
the  most  High." 

Here  we  see  art  inserted  organically  in  the  whole 
of  the  service;  music  too,  like  the  swallow,  had 
found  a  nest  on  the  altar  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts 
(Psalm  Ixxxiv.  3). 

From  such  descriptions  we  comprehend  the  en- 
thusiastic love  and  devotion  of  the  Israelite  for  his 
temple  where  everything  that  was  beautiful  in  his 
eyes  was  consecrated  and  illumined  by  religion, 
where  he  "might  behold  the  beautiful  worship  of 
the  Lord,"  as  Luther  translates  Psalm  xxvii.  4,  in- 
correctly to  be  sure,  but  most  comfortingly;52  and 
music  has  contributed  the  richest  share  in  making 
this  "beautiful  worship  of  the  Lord." 

"The   authorized  version   has   simply   "the   beauty   of   the 
Lord."— Tr. 


132  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

Both  the  secular  and  temple  music  of  ancient 
Israel  have  long  since  died  out  in  silence.  Not  one 
tone  has  remained  alive,  not  one  note  of  her  melo- 
dies do  we  hear,  but  not  in  vain  did  it  resound  in 
days  of  old.  Without  temple  music  there  would 
be  no  temple  song;  without  temple  song,  no  Psalms. 
The  Psalms  belong  to  the  most  precious  treasures 
among  the  spiritual  possessions  of  mankind;  these 
we  owe  to  the  music  of  ancient  Israel,  and  in  them 
the  temple  music  of  ancient  Israel  continues  to  live 
to-day  and  will  endure  for  all  time. 


THE  PSALMS  IN  UNIVERSAL  LITERA- 
TURE. 

PSALMS  and  universal  literature!1  Two  great 
and  significant  expressions !  Two  mighty  and 
heart-stirring  facts!  We  Germans  especially  cannot 
fail  to  feel  pride  and  joy  when  we  speak  the  phrase 
"universal  literature/'  for  the  phrase  and  the  idea 
originated  on  German  soil,  are  the  fruit  of  the  Ger- 
man mind,  j  The  phrase,  as  is  known,  comes  from 
Goethe,  the  most  universal  genius  of  Germany  and 
perhaps  of  mankind ;  but  the  idea  we  owe  to  Herder. 
Goethe  himself  frankly  declared  this  in  five  fine  stan- 
zas composed  in  honor  of  Herder.  I  cannot  forbear 
quoting  them  because  they  are  among  the  less  fa- 
miliar of  Goethe's  compositions,  and  because  they 
develop  in  a  manner  quite  classic  the  idea  of  uni- 
versal literature.  In  a  masque  for  the  18th  of  De- 
cember, 1818,  the  Ilm  is  represented  as  introducing 
the  four  literary  princes  of  Weimar :  Wieland,  Her- 
der, Goethe,  and  Schiller,  and  characterizes  Herder 
as  follows: 

1  Weltliteratur.  The  translation  is  not  quite  adequate ;  but 
the  German  has  the  advantage  of  us  with  his  beautiful  words : 
Weltgeschichte,  Weltgerlcht,  Weltliteratur. 


134  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

A  noble  man,  and  eager  to  discover 
How  everywhere  the  human  spirit  grows, 

Harks  for  the  word  or  tone  the  wide  world  over 
That  in  its  songs  from  countless  sources  flows, 

Through  earlier  and  through  later  ages  wending, 

His  ear  to  every  region's  voices  lending. 

And  thus  he  hears  from  nation  sung  to  nation 
What  has  touched  each  man  in  his  native  air, 

And  hears  repeated  in  naive  relation 
What  grandsires  gave  to  sires  of  good  and  fair, 

Amusement  and  instruction  both  revealing 

As  though  'twere  all  but  one  man's  act  and  feeling. 

Whate'er  casts  down  the  soul,  whate'er  upraises, 
Quickly  confused  and  carelessly  combined, 

One  thought  for  each,  a  thousand  words  and  phrases 
From  Eden  to  the  present  have  defined. 

Thus  chants  the  bard,  saga  and  song  renew  it, 

We  feel  it  all  as  though  we  had  lived  through  it. 

If  the  black  cliffs  and  overclouded  heaven 
To  pictures  here  of  gloomy  woe  constrain, 

The  sun-kissed  vault  by  jubilant  songs  is  riven 
Of  rapt  souls  yonder  on  the  open  main; 

Their  will  was  good,  what  everywhere  should  woo  man 

They  too  desired :  the  universal  human.  . 

Where'er  concealed,  his  was  the  art  that  found  it, 
In  serious  guise,  or  masked  for  lightsome  game, — 

Humanity,*  in  loftiest  sense  to  ground  it 
For  future  times  be  our  eternal  aim ! 

O  would  his  spirit  now  might  see  them  leave  us, 

Healed  by  humanity, — the  plagues  that  grieve  us ! 

[Ein  edler  Mann,  begierig,  zu  ergriinden, 
Wie  uberall  des  Menschen  Sinn  erspriesst, 
Horcht  in  die  Welt,  so  Ton  als  Wort  zu  finden, 
Das  tausendquellig  durch  die  Lander  fliesst; 
Die  altesten,  die  neusten  Regionen 
Durchwandelt  er  und  lauscht  in  alien  Zonen. 

8  Menschlichkeit  assumes  here,  of  course,  much  of  the  second 
sense  of  humanity,  i.  e.,  humaneness. 


THE  PSALMS  IN  UNIVERSAL  LITERATURE.      135 

Und  so  von  Volk  zu  Volke  hort  er  singen, 
Was  Jeden  in  der  Mutterlust  geruhrt, 
Er  hort  erzahlen,  was  von  guten  Dingen 
Urvaters  Wort  dem  Vater  zugefiihrt. 
Das  Alles  war  Ergetzlichkeit  und  Lehre, 
Gefuhl  und  That,  als  wenn  es  eines  ware. 

Was  Leiden  bringen  mag  und  was  Geniige, 

Behend  verwirrt  und  ungehofft  vereint, 

Das  haben  tausend  Sprach-  und  Redezuge 

Vom  Paradies  bis  heute  gleich  gemeint. 

So  singt  der  Barde,  spricht  Legend'  und  Sage; 

Wir  fiihlen  mit,  als  waren's  unsre  Tage. 

Wenn  schwarz  der  Fels,  umhangen  Atmosphare 

Zu  Traumgebilden  diistrer  Klage  zwingt, 

Dort  heiterm  Sonnenglanz  im  offnen  Meere 

Das  hohe  Lied  entziickter  Seele  klingt: 

Sie  meinen's  gut  und  fromm  im  Grund,  sie  wollten 

Nur  Menschliches,  was  Alle  wollen  sollten. 

Wo  sich's  versteckte,  wusst'  er's  aufzufinden, 

Ernsthaft  verhiillt,  verkleidet  leicht  als  Spiel, 

Im  hochsten  Sinn  der  Zukunft  zu  begriinden : 

Humanitdt  sei  unser  ewig  Ziel. 

O,  warum  schaut  er  nicht  in  diesen  Tagen 

Durch  Menschlichkeit  geheilt  die  schwersten  Plagen!] 

Herder,  you  know,  was  an  East  Prussian,  and 
since  I  have  become  acquainted  with  East  Prussia 
through  my  own  observation,  I  am  inclined  to  re- 
gard it  as  not  a  mere  matter  of  chance  that  it  was 
an  East  Prussian  mind  that  first  developed  the  idea 
of  universal  literature.  For  East  Prussia  has  pecu- 
liar ethnographic  conditions  such  as  are  found  no- 
where else  in  Germany.  Here,  among  and  along 
with  the  Germans,  dwell  two  other  races  of  distinctly 
marked  individuality  and  of  great  poetic  endow- 


136  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

ment,  the  Poles  and  the  Lithuanians,  and  Herder's 
native  town,  Mohrungen,  is  situated  in  close  prox- 
imity to  the  wholly  Polish  province  of  Ermland, 
which  in  his  day  still  belonged  politically  to  the 
kingdom  of  Poland.  As  a  result  of  these  early 
impressions,  and  of  the  similar  conditions  in  Riga, 
where  he  spent  the  next  five  years  after  finishing 
his  studies  at  Konigsberg,  his  ear  could  not  fail  to 
become  sensitive  to  the  peculiarities  of  national 
tones,  while  his  eye  was  opened  to  what  was  com- 
mon in  national  characteristics,  to  the  purely  human. 
Moreover,  Herder  had  the  gift  of  catching  the 
utterances  of  nations  in  their  most  individual  and  at 
the  same  time  most  purely  human  manifestations,  in 
the  spontaneous  expressions  of  their  racial  peculiar- 
ity. Herder  has  a  marvelous  eye  and  a  unique  sense 
for  racial  peculiarities ;  he  is  in  truth  the  discoverer 
of  the  race-soul.  Whether  dealing  with  Esthonians 
or  Persians,  with  Lithuanians  or  Spaniards,  with 
Scots  or  Israelites,  with  equal  insight  Herder  recog- 
nizes and  understands  their  innermost  emotions,  and 
finds  in  their  popular  literature  their  poetic  echo 
and  their  artistic  self-revelation.  All  humankind  is 
to  him  a  gigantic  harp  in  the  hand  of  God,  each  na- 
tion constituting  a  string  and  producing  a  distinct 
tone,  and  all  together,  when  touched  by  the  hand  of 
one  divine  master,  joining  in  a  jubilant  accord  of 
everlasting  harmonies;  for  the  same  God  enables 
them  all  to  give  utterance  to  their  sorrows  and  their 
joys.  This  is  all  that  they  say,  each  in  the  tone  given 
by  God. 


THE  PSALMS  IN  UNIVERSAL  LITERATURE.      137 

How  Herder,  through  his  way  of  looking  at  the 
matter,  made  an  epoch  in  the  appreciation  of  the 
sacred  literature  of  Israel,  I  may  assume  to  be  gen- 
erally known.  While  before  it  had  been  regarded 
solely  as  the  supernaturally  revealed  word  of  God, 
the  human  factor  wholly  ignored,  and  while  the 
father  of  the  historical  treatment  of  the  biblical 
books,  the  aged  Johann  Salomon  Semler  in  Halle, 
could  see  in  the  Old  Testament  nothing  but  the  un- 
edifying  literature  of  an  untutored  people,  Herder 
taught  that  it  was  the  artistic  product  of  the  intellect 
of  the  Hebrew  nation  and  at  the  same  time  a  relig- 
ious monument,  and  thus  in  a  certain  sense  he  re- 
discovered it  for  his  contemporaries  and  for  all  suc- 
ceeding generations  and  revealed  its  nobility.  Who- 
ever occupies  himself  to  any  extent  with  the  sacred 
literature  of  Israel,  and  whoever  loves  it,  owes  to  no 
one  greater  gratitude  or  sincerer  admiration  than 
to  Johann  Gottfried  Herder. 

A  providential  dispensation  brought  this  seer  and 
prophet  into  closest  intimacy  with  Goethe  at  the 
most  critical  and  important  period  for  the  latter, 
when  the  springtime  of  his  life  was  expanding  within 
him,  "and  all  the  buds  were  swelling."  As  a  matter 
of  course,  in  the  case  of  Goethe's  far  richer  and  far 
more  comprehensive  genius,  such  suggestions  fell 
upon  fruitful  ground.  He  could  not  fail  to  see  in 
the  poetic  activity  of  the  various  nations  "a  dance 
of  spheres,  harmonious  amid  tumult,"  as  he  ex- 
presses it  in  the  poem  entitled  "Universal  Litera- 
ture." He  found  for  the  fact  the  expressive  name 


138  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

"Universal  Literature"  (W '  eltliteratur) .  Whatever 
beautiful  and  permanent  work  a  man  or  a  nation 
has  achieved  has  been  wrought  not  solely  for  this 
man  or  that  nation,  but  for  humanity,  for  the  whole 
world.  Before  the  universal  power  of  poetry  and 
beauty  all  national  barriers  fall,  the  bounds  of  its 
influence  extend  as  far  as  poetry  and  beauty  reach, 
that  is  to  say,  wherever  human  hearts  beat. 

But  this  phrase  coined  by  Goethe  is  used  in  a 
double  sense,  both  as  the  confirmation  of  a  fact  and 
as  a  critical  judgment.  It  is  true  that  all  the  imag- 
inative productions  of  mankind  together  constitute 
universal  literature  as  the  imaginative  manifestation 
of  the  human  mind.  This  imaginative  manifestation 
is  innate  to  it,  is  part  of  its  very  nature,  blows 
whither  it  listeth,  being  restricted  to  neither  nation- 
ality nor  race.  Yet  only  a  small  number  of  poetic 
geniuses,  indeed,  only  certain  of  their  works,  may 
be  said  in  a  special  sense  to  belong  to  universal  lit- 
erature. 

And  what  do  we  mean  when  we  pronounce  such 
a  judgment? 

We  mean  that  these  works  not  only  have  a  sig- 
nificance for  their  nation,  but  that  they  belong  to 
the  world.  Of  course  these  are  only  the  most  prom- 
inent productions  of  the  individual  literatures,  the 
most  immortal  creations,  in  which  poetic  genius  has, 
so  to  speak,  excelled  itself,  just  as  in  a  mountain 
panorama  to  one  standing  at  a  distance  the  lower 
mountains  combine  and  blend  into  a  compact  and 
formless  mass,  while  plastic  and  individual  effects 


THE  PSALMS  IN  UNIVERSAL  LITERATURE.      139 

are  produced  only  by  the  highest  peaks,  which  tower 
like  monarchs  and  in  solitary  majesty  into  the  bright 
blue  of  the  ether,  kissed  by  the  very  first  breath  of 
the  dawn  while  night  still  spreads  her  dusky  pinions 
over  hill  and  valley,  and  flushed  by  the  last  rays  of 
the  setting  sun  while  deep  twilight  has  already  set- 
tled upon  the  earth.  That  is  what  we  mean  when 
we  speak  of  universal  literature,  when  we  ascribe 
to  a  poetic  product  a  place  in  universal  literature. 

And  what  are  the  claims  that  support  this  posi- 
tion? 

That  such  works  must  be  finished  works  of  art  is 
so  much  a  matter  of  course  that  it  need  scarcely  be 
said ;  for  in  every  art  only  the  finished  has  any  claim 
to  permanence.  The  essential  qualifications  for  a  place 
in  universal  literature  have  been  shown  plainly  and 
clearly  by  Goethe  in  the  already  quoted  poem  to 
Herder,— 

— "what  everywhere  should  woo  man 
They  too  desired, — the  universal  human." 

The  content  of  such  works  must  be  universally  hu- 
man. They  must  arouse  in  us  feelings  which  apper- 
tain to  every  human  being  as  such,  no  matter  in 
what  zone  or  among  what  people  he  was  born ;  they 
must  be  international  in  the  preeminent  sense  of  the 
word.  But  Goethe  mentions  a  second  essential  requi- 
site in  the  words  they  sing, 

"What  has  touched  each  man  in  his  native  air." 

Such  works  must  also  be  national  in  the  pre- 
eminent sense  of  the  word,  must  be  characteristic 


140  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

of  the  nation  which  gave  them  birth,  and  must  at 
the  same  time  be  the  highest  and  purest  artistic  self- 
revelation  of  its  special  individuality. 

There  is  scarcely  anything  on  earth  more  sacred 
and  divine  than  the  individuality  of  man  or  of  na- 
tion; it  is  the  first  and  indispensable  duty  of  either 
to  live  out  and  develop  it.  Just  as,  in  Ruckert's  pro- 
found saying,  the  rose  adorns  the  garden  by  adorning 
itself,  even  so  with  man.  The  individual  and  the 
individual  nation  become  valuable  members  of  hu- 
manity precisely  in  so  far  as  they  develop  their  own 
distinct  peculiarities,  which  could  be  developed  in 
just  the  same  way  by  no  other  man  and  no  other 
people. 

Accordingly  the  intellectual  products  that  belong 
to  universal  literature  must  be  finished  works  of  art, 
representing  in  a  specifically  and  distinctly  national 
form  a  purely  and  universal  human  content,  so  that 
such  a  work  could  be  produced  in  this  manner  only 
by  the  very  people  from  which  it  comes. 

After  thus  surveying  the  ground  let  us  approach 
the  treatment  of  our  theme.  This  will  develop  in 
two  directions.  We  must  ask  (1)  Do  the  Psalms 
belong  to  universal  literature  at  all  in  the  preeminent 
sense  intended  by  us?  And  if  we  answer  this  ques- 
tion affirmatively,  then  (2)  What  is  the  significance 
of  the  Psalms  in  universal  literature? 

Pray  do  not  consider  it  pedantry,  or  even  quite 
superfluous,  if  I  ask  first:  Do  the  Psalms  belong  to 
universal  literature  at  all?  Wide  distribution  alone 
is  no  criterion.  The  Koran,  for  instance,  can  rival 


THE  PSALMS  IN  UNIVERSAL  LITERATURE.       141 

the  Bible  in  the  matter  of  wide  distribution,  for  it 
is  the  bible  of  200,000,000  human  beings  in  Europe, 
Asia,  and  Africa;  yet  for  my  part  I  would  never 
include  the  Koran  in  universal  literature.  True,  it 
is  national  in  a  preeminent  sense,  a  most  typical  ex- 
pression of  the  peculiar  combination  of  dry,  sober 
reason  and  luxuriant,  sensually  glowing  imagination 
which  constitutes  the  national  character  of  the  Arab. 
But  the  Koran  never  got  beyond  the  national,  and 
rises  to  the  height  neither  of  the  purely  human  nor 
of  the  finished  work  of  art.  The  hopelessly  dull 
prose  portions  and  the  over-ornate  poetic  pieces  are 
unedifying  to  any  but  an  Arab,  unless  he  is  con- 
strained by  religious  considerations  to  regard  this 
book  as  a  divine  revelation. 

But  the  case  is  different  with  the  Psalms.  True, 
the  one  hundred  and  fifty  different  songs  of  which 
the  collection  consists  are  not  all  of  equal  value  and 
significance.  In  the  familiar  expression  of  Horace, 
even  Homer  sometimes  nods,  and  thus  a  weak  verse 
or  a  dull  episode  creeps  into  his  work.  But  we  judge 
and  estimate  a  poet  or  a  literature  by  its  best,  and 
no  competent  critic  who  knows  the  Psalms  will 
deny  that  among  them  are  a  considerable  number  of 
the  finest  and  noblest  things  in  all  lyric  poetry. 

Moreover,  almost  any  one  will  admit  that  the 
Psalms  are  products  of  the  specific  Israelitic  intel- 
lect, and  characteristic  for  the  people  of  Israel.  In 
what  other  literature,  indeed,  have  we  anything  like 
them?  True,  poems  have  recently  been  found  in 
cuneiform  literature  which  have  an  undeniable  re- 


142  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

semblance  to  the  Psalms.  They  are  constructed 
with  that  peculiar  parallelism  of  members,  that 
thought-rhythm,  which  we  know  in  Israelitic  poetry, 
and  even  in  the  phraseology  there  is  much  that  in- 
voluntarily suggests  the  language  of  the  Psalms. 
But  any  one  who  should  even  remotely  match  these 
Assyrian  and  Babylonian  psalms  with  the  Hebrew, 
or  undertake  a  serious  comparison  of  the  two,  would 
thereby  testify  to  his  own  literary  incompetence. 
The  very  similarity  of  form  and  superficial  features 
make  us  doubly  conscious  of  the  entire  difference 
in  spirit  and  content,  just  as  one  becomes  fully 
aware  of  the  whole  greatness,  nobility  and  incom- 
parableness  of  Goethe's  "Hermann  und  Dorothea" 
only  by  a  comparison  with  Voss's  "Luise." 

But  do  the  Psalms  rise  to  the  height  of  the  purely 
human  ?  Or  must  we  not  finally  on  the  most  impor- 
tant point  judge  them  as  we  did  the  Koran?  The 
Psalms  are  religious  poems,  the  classical  expression 
of  the  religion  of  Israel,  and  the  question  is  finally 
reduced  to  the  more  important  and  vital  one :  Is  the 
religion  of  Israel  merely  one  conditioned  and  lim- 
ited by  its  nationality,  or  has  it  a  significance  for  the 
world,  for  mankind? 

There  are  not  a  few,  especially  in  our  day,  who 
unqualifiedly  deny  it  this  importance,  and  propose 
at  the  best  to  let  it  stand  as  a  more  or  less  interesting 
curiosity  which  belongs  entirely  to  the  field  of  his- 
tory. And  they  offer  reasons  for  this  view.  The 
sacred  literature  of  Israel  is  said  to  contain  un- 
worthy conceptions  of  God.  Certain  it  is  that  the 


THE  PSALMS  IN  UNIVERSAL  LITERATURE.      143 

Old  Testament  speaks  of  God  in  a  very  human 
fashion,  when  it  tells  how  God  walked  at  eventide 
in  the  Garden  of  Eden,  how  he  closed  the  door  of 
Noah's  ark  with  his  own  hands,  how  he  visited 
Abraham  under  the  oaks  of  Mamre,  and  showed 
only  his  back  to  Moses,  since  the  sight  of  his  face 
is  fatal  to  man.  It  attributes  to  God  human  form 
and  human  emotions,  and  in  one  passage  of  the 
Psalms  we  even  read  the  unparalleled  figure :  "Then 
the  Lord  awakened  like  one  out  of  sleep,  like  a 
mighty  man  that  shouteth  by  reason  of  wine." 
(Psalms  Ixxviii.  65.)  But  one  who  takes  offence 
at  such  expressions  and  regards  them  as  demeaning 
to  God  only  proves  thereby  that  he  lacks  apprecia- 
tion for  religion  and  poetry.  What  appears  to  our 
local  prejudice  a  defect  in  the  Old  Testament  is  in 
truth  its  chief  strength  and  its  highest  claim  to  fame ; 
for  this  is  only  a  consequence  of  the  fact  that  the 
religion  of  Israel  took  seriously  the  fundamental 
requisite  of  all  religion — the  requisite  of  a  personal 
God. 

Religion  is  the  most  personal  matter  in  the  uni- 
verse, the  surrender  of  one's  own  self  to  a  higher 
being,  not  in  order  to  lose  oneself,  but  to  find  one- 
self, in  order  to  receive  oneself  again  from  this 
higher  being  in  the  transfigured  and  more  perfect 
form  which  an  inner  voice  tells  us  corresponds  to 
the  deepest  and  truest  essence  of  our  self.  Such  a 
reciprocal  giving  and  receiving,  such  a  mutual  re- 
lationship, is  possible  only  between  persons.  We 
can  just  as  little  enter  into  a  personal  relation  with 


144  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

a  mere  abstraction,  a  pure  idea,  as  the  feeling  of  love 
in  the  highest  sense,  such  as  pervades  a  man  with 
irresistible  power,  lends  wings  to  his  soul  and  lifts 
him  out  of  himself,  is  conceivable  toward  a  statue, 
be  it  ever  so  true  to  life,  or  even  much  more  beauti- 
ful and  noble  than  any  earthly  being  of  flesh  and 
blood.  The  famous  phrase  of  the  poet: 

"And  full  of  bliss  or  full  of  sorrow, 
Each  heart  needs  a  companion  heart," 

applies  not  only  to  the  relation  of  man  to  man,  but 
also  to  that  of  man  to  God. 

Religion  requires  a  God  with  whom  man  can  enter 
into  a  personal,  loving  relation  of  heart  to  heart,  to 
whom  he  can  pour  out  his  heart,  to  whom  he  can 
pray.  It  is  not  merely  accidental  but  very  signifi- 
cant, that  David  Friedrich  Strauss,  in  his  Old  and 
New  Faith,  having  once  surrendered  the  personality 
of  God,  answers  the  second  question,  "Have  we 
still  a  religion  ?"  no  longer  unconditionally,  but  with 
"That  depends  on  how  you  understand  it."  The 
center  and  soul  of  all  religion,  the  belief  in  a  per- 
sonal God,  is  the  pillar  of  the  religion  of  Israel. 
And  it  fathomed  this  truth  with  incomparable  and 
triumphant  energy,  and  expressed  it  with  incom- 
parable poetic  power. 

But  how  is  one  to  describe  a  personality  or  speak 
of  it  otherwise  than  in  the  forms  and  according  to 
the  manner  of  the  only  personality  known  to  us, 
the  human?  It  is  the  wonderful  secret  of  the  Old 
Testament,  that,  speaking  in  such  a  human  fashion 
of  God,  it  simply  brings  him  nearer  to  us  without 


THE  PSALMS  IN  UNIVERSAL  LITERATURE.      145 

detracting  in  the  least  from  his  divinity.     One  may 
apply  here  the  words  of  the  poet : 

"  'Tis  bliss  in  his  demesne  to  dwell 
And  every  heart  near  him  doth  swell, 
But  loftiness  and  dignity 
Forbid  familiarity." 

Yes,  'tis  bliss  in  his  demesne  to  dwell,  and  every 
heart  swells.  He  appears  to  us  as  a  dear  saviour 
and  helper,  as  a  trusted  friend  and  counsellor;  but 
familiarity,  all  irreverent  approach  is  excluded,  for 
even  in  this  dear  and  intimate  form  he  remains 
God,  enthroned  above  this  earthly  sphere,  to  whom 
its  inhabitants  are  as  grasshoppers,  to  whom  the 
nations  are  esteemed  as  a  drop  in  the  bucket  and  as 
the  fine  dust  of  the  balance.  Thence  it  comes  ac- 
cordingly— for  me  one  of  the  strongest  proofs  of 
the  divinity  of  the  religion  of  Israel — that  all  who 
have  broken  with  the  belief  in  a  personal  God  honor 
the  Old  Testament  with  their  especial  dislike,  for 
the  God  of  Israel  is  not  to  be  mocked;  there  is  no 
treating  and  bargaining  with  this  mighty  personal- 
ity; he  cannot  be  dissolved  in  any  philosophic  aqua 
fortis  or  vaporized  in  any  pantheistic  retort;  he  is 
the  great  I  Am,  the  same  yesterday,  to-day  and 
forever,  who  speaks  and  it  is  done,  who  commands 
and  it  comes  to  pass,  who  made  the  heavens  by  his 
word  and  all  the  hosts  thereof  by  the  breath  of  his 
mouth,  who  looketh  on  the  earth  and  it  trembleth, 
who  toucheth  the  hills  and  they  smoke,  who  with- 
draweth  his  breath  and  they  perish  and  return  to  the 
dust  of  which  they  were  made. 


146  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT   ISRAEL. 

But  does  not  the  Old  Testament  represent  its  God 
as  too  human  ?  Does  it  not  ascribe  to  him  unattrac- 
tive human  qualities  ?  For  among  them  wrath  plays 
a  part,  and  there  has  been  a  great  deal  said  about  the 
wrathful  God  of  the  Jews,  and  this  meets  one  con- 
stantly where  the  purpose  is  to  disparage  and  dis- 
credit the  religion  and  the  sacred  literature  of  Israel. 
True,  the  Old  Testament  speaks  much  and  often 
and  not  infrequently  in  very  strong  terms  of  the 
wrath  of  God.  In  one  Psalm  it  is  said : 

"Then  the  earth  shook  and  trembled,  the  foun- 
dations also  of  the  mountains  moved  and  were 
shaken  because  he  was  wroth.  There  went  up 
smoke  out  of  his  nostrils,  and  fire  out  of  his  mouth 
devoured :  coals  were  kindled  by  it."  (Psalms  xviii. 
7-8.) 

This,  to  be  sure,  seems  more  like  Moloch  than 
Yahveh.  But  let  us  look  more  closely.  There  is 
nowhere  such  a  multitude  of  errors  as  concerning 
the  wrath  of  God.  What  is  wrath  anyway?  We 
think  we  have  an  example  of  it  when  we  see  any  one 
scolding  and  ranting,  railing  and  tearing,  but  such 
a  person  is  simply  in  a  rage,  and  rage  and  wrath  are 
two  different  things.  Genuine  righteous  wrath  is 
one  of  the  divinest  passions  of  which  man  is  capable, 
for  it  is  the  primal  revolt  of  the  divinity  in  man 
against  all  that  is  low  and  mean,  because  in  this  it 
perceives  the  degradation  and  desecration  of  his 
true  nature.  It  is  well  known  that  great  and  supe- 
rior men  never  appear  greater  and  more  superior, 
that  their  greatness  and  superiority  never  come  more 


THE  PSALMS  IN  UNIVERSAL  LITERATURE.      147 

directly  in  evidence  than  when  they  are  wroth  with 
this  genuine  righteous  wrath;  how  the  figure  seems 
to  tower,  the  eye  flashes  lightning  to  consume  what 
is  mean  with  atoning  and  purifying  flames, — a  spec- 
tacle as  grand  and  impressive  as  that  of  a  thunder- 
storm, in  which  man  has  always  believed  that  he 
heard  most  directly  the  voice  of  God.  Wrath,  in 
fact,  is  one  of  the  most  essential  qualities  of  the 
divine  image  after  which  man  was  fashioned,  and 
can  we  expect  it  to  be  absent  from  the  archetype? 
The  wrath  of  God  is  nothing  else  than  the  reaction 
of  the  divine  holiness  against  all  that  is  unholy  and 
ungodly.  For,  as  a  passage  of  the  Psalms  has  it: 
"Thou  art  not  a  God  that  hath  pleasure  in  wicked- 
ness; the  evil  man  shall  not  sojourn  with  thee." 
(Psalms  v.  4.)  A  God  lacking  in  this  trait  would 
be  like  a  man  lacking  in  conscience.  And  to  ascer- 
tain the  true  opinion  of  the  Old  Testament  of  the 
relation  of  this  one  trait  to  the  complete  conception 
of  God,  we  need  only  to  consider  the  verse  of  the 
Psalm  (xxx.  5) :  "For  his  anger  is  but  for  a  moment. 
His  favor  is  for  a  lifetime;  weeping  may  come  in 
to  lodge  at  even,  but  joy  cometh  in  the  morning." 
Those  that  are  so  stirred  up  over  the  wrathful 
God  of  the  Jews  either  do  not  know,  or  forget,  that 
the  divine  wrath  is  not  only  a  Jewish  but  also  a 
Christian  doctrine,  so  that  all  the  stripes  and  kicks 
bestowed  upon  the  Old  Testament  on  this  account 
fall  equally  upon  the  New  Testament.  And  when 
those  that  fancy  themselves  to  have  a  monopoly 
of  Teutonic  race  consciousness,  who  hold  up  Sieg- 


148  THE   CULTURE  OF   ANCIENT   ISRAEL. 

fried  and  Wotan  against  David  and  Yahveh,  and, 
impelled  by  their  Teutonic  race  conscience  and  sen- 
timent, testify  against  the  wrathful  God  of  the  Jews, 
we  are  really  at  a  loss  what  to  make  of  it.  For  the 
wrath  of  God  especially  is  a  genuine  and  distinctly 
Teutonic  conception,  for  which  the  religion  of  the 
Teutonic  races  coined  a  special  word,  calling  the 
wrath  of  the  gods  dsmodr  (ass,  a  god,  and  modr, 
wrath).  The  primitive  Germans  were  far  too  keen 
and  vigorous  in  their  feeling,  too  genuine  and  noble 
children  of  nature  not  to  conceive  a  militant  and 
triumphant  idea  of  moral  and  ethical  power. 

When  we  read  in  the  Edda  how  Thor,  in  order 
to  destroy  the  powers  of  darkness  and  give  victory 
to  the  good, 

"When  he  saw  the  heavens  with  wickedness  heavy, 
Seldom  he  lingers  when  the  like  he  looks  on," 

now,  as  the  Voluspa  says,  seizes  his  fearful  ham- 
mer in  godlike  wrath  (dsmodi)  and  bravely  smites 
the  terrible  dragon,  no  one  will  deny  that  these  are 
similar  views  to  those  in  Isaiah,  where  we  read: 
"And  the  Lord  saw  it,  and  it  displeased  him  that 
there  was  no  judgment.  And  he  saw  that  there 
was  no  man,  and  wondered  that  there  was  none  to 
interpose :  therefore  his  own  arm  brought  salvation 
unto  him,  and  his  righteousness,  it  upheld  him.  And 
he  put  on  righteousness  as  a  breastplate,  and  an 
helmet  of  salvation  upon  his  head;  and  he  put  on 
garments  of  vengeance  for  clothing,  and  was  clad 
with  zeal  as  a  cloak.  According  to  their  deeds 
accordingly  he  will  repay,  fury  to  his  adversaries, 


THE  PSALMS  IN  UNIVERSAL  LITERATURE.      149 

recompense  to  his  enemies ....  So  shall  they  fear 
the  name  of  the  Lord  in  the  west  and  his  glory  from 
the  rising  of  the  sun."  (Isaiah  lix.  15-19.) 

This  too  shows  what  a  decided  kinship  there  is 
between  the  feeling  of  the  Teutonic  soul  and  that 
of  Israel,  a  fact  that  was  first  pointed  out,  so  far 
as  I  know,  by  a  man  whose  name  no  one  can  men- 
tion any  longer  in  certain  quarters  without  danger 
of  being  stoned, — I  mean  Heinrich  Heine,  who, 
however,  was  right  in  this  as  in  many  other  things. 
And  if  in  spite  of  all  this  the  enemies  of  the  Old 
Testament  should  insist  upon  their  case — for  with 
unreason  and  unfairness  the  gods  themselves  con- 
tend in  vain — and  grow  indignant  still  in  their  Teu- 
tonic race  temper  at  the  wrathful  God  of  the  Jews, 
— well,  then  I  profess  myself  on  this  point  frankly 
and  unreservedly  a  Jew,  and  dwell  in  the  serene 
confidence  that  I  am  no  worse  a  German  and  no 
worse  a  Christian  for  all  that. 


ii. 

But  the  contemners  of  the  Old  Testament  dis- 
cover in  Hebrew  literature,  and  especially  in  the 
Psalms,  not  only  theological  defects  but  profound 
ethical  faults.  On  the  one  hand,  where  Israel  is 
concerned,  an  arrogant,  impious  self -righteousness 
which  approaches  the  Lord  and  demands  reward  of 
him,  on  the  other  hand,  where  non-Israelites  are 
concerned,  an  inhuman,  bloodthirsty  temper  which 
knows  only  feelings  of  hatred  and  revenge,  and 


150  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT   ISRAEL. 

expects  and  even  implores  of  God  for  this  portion 
of  mankind  only  wrath  and  damnation. 

First  let  me  make  a  general  prefatory  remark: 
that  Israel  also  incurs  the  wrath  of  God  and  stands 
in  constant  expectation  of  it,  is  expressed  in  the 
Psalms  themselves  most  clearly  and  most  impres- 
sively. And  the  judgments  which  the  Psalmists  hope 
and  expect  are  aimed  in  very  considerable  measure 
not  at  the  heathen,  but  at  impious  and  apostate 
Israelites.  As  for  the  undeniable  expressions  of 
self -righteousness,  if  we  are  to  judge  justly  we  must 
not  forget  that  they  are  balanced  by  at  least  an 
equal  number  of  descriptions  of  the  sinfulness  and 
corruption  of  the  people,  painted  in  the  very  highest 
colors.  So  Israel  did  not  flatter  itself,  nor  try  to 
delude  itself  as  to  its  own  condition;  indeed,  we 
cannot  but  admire  its  unsparing  devotion  to  the 
truth  in  this  respect.  And  in  this  matter  of  self- 
righteousness  it  should  be  observed  further  that 
such  expressions  are  not  intended  in  a  personal  and 
individual  sense,  but  refer  to  Israel  as  a  congrega- 
tion, for  the  Psalms  are  the  hymns  of  the  congre- 
gation, and  the  "I"  which  speaks  in  them  is  the 
congregation.  And  was  not  Israel  justified,  when 
it  considered  the  night  and  darkness  of  the  heathen- 
ism round  about  it,  in  feeling  a  glad  and  grateful 
consciousness  of  the  gift  of  grace  which  it  had  re- 
ceived in  its  revelation  of  God?  Was  it  not  ac- 
tually justified,  in  view  of  the  abominations  of 
heathendom,  in  speaking  of  its  righteousness  and 
declaring  that  it  had  kept  the  commandments  of  the 


THE  PSALMS  IN  UNIVERSAL  LITERATURE.      151 

Lord?  Even  the  Christian  church,  in  the  so-called 
Apostles'  Creed,  characterizes  itself  as  the  "Com- 
munion of  the  Saints,"  and  no  Christian  takes  of- 
fence at  this,  although  he  knows  that  this  com- 
munion by  no  means  consists  of  saints  alone,  indeed 
that  there  is  not  in  it  a  single  one  who  could  be  re- 
garded as  a  saint  when  measured  by  the  standard 
of  divine  holiness. 

Further  there  is  absolutely  no  denying  the  ex- 
pressions of  unfriendliness  toward  others.  For  in- 
stance, the  sixty-ninth  Psalm,  and  still  more  the 
one  hundred  and  ninth,  contain  a  series  of  impreca- 
tions upon  the  enemy  which  are  surely  not  exem- 
plary, and  which  we  cannot  wish  to  be  the  expres- 
sions of  the  feelings  of  all  men;  and  when  at  the 
close  of  the  one  hundred  and  thirty-seventh  Psalm, 
which  begins  so  nobly  and  very  impressively,  the 
wish  is  expressed  that  the  enemy  may  seize  the 
children  of  the  Babylonians  and  dash  them  to  pieces 
on  the  stones,  we  must  see  in  this  an  animosity 
which  no  one  will  venture  to  defend  or  excuse.  I 
would  gladly  have  my  right  hand  cut  off  if  this  one 
verse  were  not  in  the  Psalter.  Later  prophetic  lit- 
erature, too,  furnishes  disagreeable  things  in  this 
respect,  and  even  the  Jews  themselves  have  justly 
taken  serious  exception  to  the  Book  of  Esther. 

But  here  too  it  is  after  all  but  a  matter  of  isolated 
instances  and  tendencies  which  are  offset  by  equally 
strong  ones  of  the  opposite  sort.  How  many  Psalms 
speak  of  the  godless  and  the  enemy  with  solemn 
ethical  earnestness,  but  without  passion  and  ani- 


152  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

mosity,  wishing  only  that  they  may  be  confused 
and  brought  to  a  recognition  of  their  wickedness! 
Indeed,  can  this  unrighteous  zeal  for  God  be  re- 
buked better  and  more  pointedly  than  in  the  precious 
words  of  the  thirty-seventh  Psalm,  which  our  glori- 
ous Felix  Mendelssohn  used  in  his  Elijah  in  order 
to  check  the  fiery  zeal  of  Elijah  by  the  mouth  of  an 
angel :  "Be  still  before  the  Lord  and  wait  patiently 
for  him;  and  he  shall  give  thee  the  desires  of  thy 
heart.  Commit  thy  way  unto  the  Lord;  trust  also 
in  him  and  he  shall  bring  it  to  pass.  Cease  from 
anger  and  forsake  wrath :  fret  not  thyself,  it  tendeth 
only  to  evil-doing"?  (Psalms  xxxvii.  7,  4,  5,  8.) 
Indeed,  even  those  undeniably  offensive  and  painful 
expressions,  examined  in  the  right  light,  are  only 
the  defects  of  virtues,  excesses  and  excrescences  of 
qualities  in  which  the  strength  of  the  religion  of 
Israel  consists.  This  staking  of  the  whole  person 
for  the  cause  of  God,  this  complete  surrender  to  it, 
is  the  mighty  power  of  the  religious  sentiment. 

The  Israelite  sees  his  God  persecuted,  hated,  op- 
pressed, assailed,  when  he  himself  thus  suffers,  and 
sees  in  the  success  of  the  wicked  the  failure  of  the 
sacred  cause  of  his  God. 

"Should  not  I  hate  them  that  hate  Thee,  O  Lord? 
I  hate  them  with  perfect  hatred:  I  count  them  my 
enemies,"  the  language  of  the  one  hundred  and 
thirty-ninth  Psalm,  must  be  taken  as  the  motto  of 
all  this  sort  of  expressions.  It  is  never  a  matter  of 
personal  hostility,  but  of  the  holy  cause  of  God,  in  the 
feelings  of  these  singers,  and  even  the  evils  which 


THE  PSALMS  IN  UNIVERSAL  LITERATURE.      153 

they  call  down  upon  the  enemy  are  only  his  own 
sins  which  God  is  asked  to  let  fall  back  as  mis- 
fortunes upon  his  head.  Even  where  this  judgment 
of  God  appears  in  the  form  of  the  victorious  wars 
of  Israel,  it  is  never  their  own  glory  or  their  own 
honor  which  they  seek :  "Not  unto  us,  Lord,  not 
unto  us,  but  unto  thy  holy  name  give  the  glory*" 
(Psalms  cxv.  1.)  "I  will  not  trust  in  my  bow, 
neither  shall  my  sword  save  me;  but  Thou  savest 
us  from  our  adversaries  and  puttest  to  shame  them 
that  hate  us."  (Psalms  xliv.  6,  7.)  And  what  the 
singers  have  to  suffer  they  are  conscious  of  suffering 
for  the  sake  of  God  and  their  faith :  "For  thy  sake 
are  we  killed  all  the  day  long;  we  are  counted  as 
sheep  for  the  slaughter,"  laments  the  singer  of  the 
forty- fourth  Psalm  (verse  22),  and  in  the  much- 
quoted  Psalm  of  vengeance,  the  sixty-ninth,  we 
read :  "O  God,  thou  knowest  my  foolishness,  and 
my  sins  are  not  hid  from  thee.  Let  not  them  that 
wait  on  thee  be  ashamed  through  me,  O  Lord  God 
of  hosts :  let  not  those  that  seek  thee  be  brought  to 
dishonor  through  me,  O  God  of  Israel!  Because 
for  thy  sake  I  have  borne  reproach;  shame  hath 
covered  my  face.  For  the  zeal  of  thine  house  hath 
eaten  me  up;  and  the  reproaches  of  them  that  re- 
proach thee  are  fallen  upon  me"  (verses  5-9).  Their 
cause  is  also  God's  cause,  and  their  honor  God's 
honor.  Were  the  heathen,  then,  to  be  suffered  to 
shout  continually  in  mockery,  "Where  is  then  your 
God?"  Often  the  singers  express  most  touchingly 
how  difficult  it  is  to  restrain  themselves  and  keep 


154  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

still  in  the  presence  of  this  apparent  defeat  of  the 
cause  of  God,  and  amid  the  arrogant  sneers  of  the 
ungodly  victors. 

No,  here  too  the  root  is  not  evil ;  we  have  here  only 
the  ferment  of  an  unclarified  vintage  that  has  been 
pressed  from  noble  grapes.  We  all  know  that  even 
the  sun  has  spots,  and  yet  it  is  and  always  will  be 
to  us  the  symbol  of  brightness  and  purity.  So  we 
may  admit  that  there  are  some  dark  spots  in  the 
Psalms,  and  yet  we  may  justly  hold  to  their  pre- 
dominantly sunny  quality;  they  offer  us  relatively 
so  much  more  that  is  purely  and  truly  human  that 
even  from  this  standpoint  we  need  not  feel  com- 
pelled to  surrender  their  claim  to  a  place  in  universal 
literature. 

But  what,  then,  is  their  significance  in  universal 
literature  ? 

They  are  for  the  world  what  they  were  for  Israel, 
the  prayer-book  and  hymn-book.  In  fact  we  have 
in  the  Psalms  the  purest  expression  of  the  religious 
sentiment  in  the  artistic  form  of  the  lyric,  the  crown 
of  sacred  poetry.  Their  wealth,  like  life,  is  inex- 
haustible; all  the  situations  and  events  of  life  are 
viewed  in  the  light  of  godly  meditation  and  con- 
secrated and  ennobled  by  piety,  so  that  they  are 
transfigured  into  prayers  and  hymns.  In  them  we 
hear  every  chord  struck,  and  all  with  equal  purity 
and  strength :  lamentation  and  mourning,  confession 
and  penitence,  prayer  and  praise,  thanksgiving  and 
adoration.  There  is  scarcely  a  situation  or  a  mood 


THE  PSALMS  IN  UNIVERSAL  LITERATURE.      155 

imaginable  which  has  not  found  its  classic  expres- 
sion in  the  Psalter. 

John  Calvin,  probably  the  greatest  of  all  commen- 
tators upon  the  Psalms,  calls  the  Psalter  for  this 
reason  an  anatomy  of  the  soul,  saying  that  the 
human  soul  knows  no  mood  nor  impulse  that  is  not 
mirrored  in  the  Psalms.  And  Martin  Luther,  spir- 
itually the  most  closely  akin  to  the  Psalmist,  says  in 
his  preface  to  the  Psalter :  "Thence  too  it  comes  that 
the  Psalter  is  the  book  of  all  the  saints,  and  that 
every  one,  whatever  his  business  may  be,  finds  in  it 
psalms  and  sayings  which  are  adapted  to  his  affairs 
and  fit  him  as  if  they  had  been  composed  expressly 
on  his  account,  such  that  he  himself  could  neither 
compose  nor  invent  nor  wish  them  better."  Shall 
we  test  this  utterance  of  Luther?  Certainly,  for 
after  having  said  so  much  about  the  Psalms,  we 
surely  shall  wish  to  hear  something  from  the  Psalms 
themselves. 

Let  us  begin  with  pleasant  pictures.  "O  taste 
and  see  that  the  Lord  is  good"  (Psalms  xxxiv.  8), 
thus  the  Psalmist  himself  invites  us.  "Oh  how  great 
is  thy  goodness,  which  thou  hast  laid  up  for  them 
that  fear  thee,  which  thou  hast  wrought  for  them 
that  put  their  trust  in  thee  before  the  sons  of  men !" 
(Psalms  xxxi.  19)  thus  another  cries  in  adoration. 
"The  lines  are  fallen  unto  me  in  pleasant  places; 
yea,  I  have  a  goodly  heritage"  (Psalms  xvi.  6),  we 
hear  a  third  one  sing. 

"Thy  loving  kindness,  O  Lord,  is  in  the  heavens ; 
thy  faithfulness  reacheth  unto  the  skies.  Thy  right- 


156  THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 

eousness  is  like  the  mountains  of  God;  thy  judg- 
ments are  a  great  deep;  Lord,  thou  preservest  man 
and  beast.  How  precious  is  thy  loving  kindness, 
O  God !  And  the  children  of  men  take  refuge  under 
the  shadow  of  thy  wings.  They  shall  be  abun- 
dantly satisfied  with  the  fatness  of  thy  house;  and 
thou  shalt  make  them  drink  of  the  river  of  thy  pleas- 
ures. For  with  thee  is  the  fountain  of  life;  in  thy 
light  shall  we  see  light.  O  continue  thy  loving 
kindness  unto  them  that  know  thee,  and  thy  right- 
eousness to  the  upright  in  heart.  (Psalms  xxxvi. 
5-10.)  And  this  feeling  has  found  its  classic  ex- 
pression in  the  universally  known  twenty  -  third 
Psalm,  "The  Lord  is  my  shepherd,  I  shall  not 
want,"  and  whenever  the  heart  feels  constrained  to 
offer  its  gratitude  to  the  giver  of  all  these  good  gifts, 
how  can  it  be  done  more  briefly,  more  simply,  and 
yet  more  expressively  than  in  the  words  of  the 
Psalm,  "Oh  give  thanks  unto  the  Lord,  for  he  is 
good,  and  his  mercy  endureth  forever"?  (Psalms 
cxviii.  1.)  And  where  is  the  sacred  duty  of  thanks- 
giving brought  home  to  the  heart  of  every  man 
more  touchingly  and  more  impressively  than  in  the 
words  of  the  Psalm:  "Bless  the  Lord,  O  my  soul, 
and  forget  not  all  his  benefits"?  (Psalms  ciii.  1-2.) 
And  where  is  there  a  more  forcible  expression  of 
the  feeling  of  security  in  the  strong  hand  of  God 
and  of  his  mighty  protection,  than  in  the  words  of 
the  Psalm :  "The  Lord  is  my  light  and  my  salvation ; 
whom  shall  I  fear?  The  Lord  is  the  stronghold 
of  my  life;  of  whom  shall  I  be  afraid?"  (Psalms 


THE  PSALMS  IN  UNIVERSAL  LITERATURE.      157 

xxvii.  1.)  "The  Lord  of  hosts  is  with  us;  the  God 
of  Jacob  is  our  refuge"  (Psalms  xlvi.  7)  ;  "God 
grants  that  I  praise  his  word ;  in  God  have  I  put  my 
trust,  I  will  not  be  afraid;  what  can  flesh  do  unto 
me?"  And  the  repose  and  the  peace  which  then 
enter  the  heart  are  depicted  in  the  saying :  "My  soul 
waiteth  in  silence  for  God;  from  him  cometh  my 
salvation.  He  is  my  rock  and  my  salvation,  he  is 
my  high  tower;  I  shall  not  be  greatly  moved." 
(Psalms  Ixii.  1-2.)  And  the  mighty  "Nevertheless" 
of  faith,  which  hopes  even  where  it  cannot  see, — 
with  what  invincible  power  we  hear  it  in  the  words : 
"Nevertheless3  God  is  good  to  Israel,  even  to  such 
as  are  pure  in  heart."  For  no  one  is  disappointed 
who  waits  upon  God,  and  the  faithfulness  of  God 
is  far  above  the  faithfulness  of  the  most  faithful 
men:  "My  father  and  my  mother  have  forsaken 
me,  but  the  Lord  will  take  me  up."  (Psalms  xxvii. 
10.)  The  sense  of  communion  with  God  overcomes 
all  grief  and  sorrow;  it  outweighs  a  world,  and 
nothing  can  deprive  us  of  this  highest  of  possessions. 
"If  I  have  but  thee  I  care  for  neither  heaven  nor 
earth.  Though  my  flesh  and  my  heart  fail,  yet  is 
God  the  strength  of  my  heart  and  my  portion  for- 
ever." (Psalms  Ixxiii.  25.)  Where  was  ever  the 
longing  for  God  expressed  more  powerfully  and 
more  effectively  than  in  the  forty-second  Psalm: 
"As  the  hart  panteth  after  the  water  brooks,  so 
panteth  my  soul  after  thee,  O  God.  My  soul  thirsteth 
for  God,  for  the  living  God.  When  shall  I  come 
8  The  English  version  has  here  "Surely." 


158  THE   CULTURE  OF   ANCIENT   ISRAEL. 

to  appear  before  God?"  (Psalms  xlii.  1-2.)  And 
where  shall  we  find  expressed  more  concisely  and 
more  movingly  the  anxious  waiting  upon  God  and 
the  longing  watching  for  him  amid  feelings  of  tem- 
porary desertion  by  him,  than  in  that  sighing  as- 
piration, only  a  breath  as  it  were,  of  the  sixth 
Psalm :  "My  soul  is  sore  vexed.  And  thou,  O  Lord, 
how  long?"  or  in  the  question  filled  with  mortal 
anguish,  of  the  twenty-second  Psalm:  "My  God, 
my  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me?"  And  just 
here  I  must  not  fail  to  point  out  a  characteristic 
fact.  It  is  well  known  that  lamentation  occupies 
much  space  in  the  Psalter.  But  with  the  single  ex- 
ception of  the  eighty-eighth  Psalm  not  one  of  these 
hymns  is  all  lamentation.  They  all  overcome  the 
sorrow  and  grief  and  wrestle  their  way  out  to  hope 
and  faith  so  that  the  lamentation  finally  ends  with 
praise  and  thanks.  We  find  the  most  touching  and 
stirring  example  of  this  in  the  recurring  verse  of 
the  forty-second  Psalm,  where  we  can  still  see  in 
the  confidently  hopeful  eye  of  the  singer  the  gleam 
of  the  tear  which  his  grief  has  forced  from  him: 
"Why  art  thou  cast  down,  O  my  soul,  and  why  art 
thou  disquieted  within  me?  Hope  thou  in  God; 
for  I  shall  yet  praise  him,  who  is  the  health  of  my 
countenance  and  my  God"  (verse  5).  That  is  the 
manly  and  heroic  trait  in  Israelitic  piety,  which  is 
one  of  its  most  precious  treasures  and  a  model  to 
the  whole  world,  the  "universal  human,  which  every- 
where should  woo  man." 

And  in  the  Psalter,  too,  as  every  one  knows,  we 


THE  PSALMS  IN  UNIVERSAL  LITERATURE.      159 

find  the  profoundest  and  most  heart-stirring  tones 
of  sin  and  penitence,  as  well  as  the  clearest  and 
most  uplifting  language  of  mercy  and  forgiveness. 
"If  thou,  Lord,  shouldest  mark  iniquities,  O  Lord, 
who  shall  stand?"  (Psalms  cxxx.  3.)  "Mine  iniqui- 
ties are  more  than  the  hairs  of  my  head,  and  my 
heart  hath  failed  me."  (Psalms  xl.  12.)  "Who 
can  discern  his  errors  ?  cleanse  thou  me  from  secret 
faults."  (Psalms  xix.  12.)  And  then:  "He  deal- 
eth  not  with  us  after  our  sins  nor  rewardeth  us  after 
our  iniquities.  For  as  the  heaven  is  high  above  the 
earth,  so  great  is  his  mercy  toward  them  that  fear 
him.  As  far  as  the  East  is  from  the  West  so  far 
hath  he  removed  our  transgressions  from  us.  Like 
as  a  father  pitieth  his  children,  so  the  Lord  pitieth 
them  that  fear  him."  (Psalms  ciii.  10-13.)  And 
lest  in  the  light  of  the  mercy  of  God  the  solemnity 
of  his  holiness  be  forgotten,  we  read  in  the  one 
hundred  and  thirtieth  Psalm  the  profound  saying: 
"For  there  is  forgiveness  with  thee  that  thou  mayest 
be  feared"  (verse  4). 

And  now  a  few  sayings  of  the  Psalms  for  human 
relationships.  Can  peace  and  harmony  be  com- 
mended more  simply  and  more  urgently  than  in  the 
language  of  the  singer  of  the  one  hundred  and 
thirty-third  Psalm :  "Behold  how  good  and  pleasant 
it  is  for  brethren  to  dwell  together  in  unity !"  And 
can  domestic  happiness  and  the  blessings  of  family 
life  be  depicted  more  delightfully  and  in  a  way  that 
goes  more  to  our  hearts  than  in  the  language  of  the 
singer  of  the  one  hundred  and  twenty-eighth  Psalm : 


160  THE   CULTURE   OF  ANCIENT   ISRAEL. 

"Blessed  is  every  one  that  feareth  the  Lord,  that 
walketh  in  his  ways.  For  thou  shalt  eat  the  labor 
of  thine  hands :  happy  shalt  thou  be,  and  it  shall  be 
well  with  thee.  Thy  wife  shall  be  a  fruitful  vine  in 
the  innermost  parts  of  thy  house,  thy  sons  like  olive 
plants  around  thy  table.  Behold,  thus  shall  the  man 
be  blessed  that  feareth  the  Lord." 

And  yet  one  more  glance,  this  time  at  the  nature 
poetry  in  the  Psalter,  which  was  admired  and  praised 
by  no  less  a  master  than  Alexander  von  Humboldt. 
The  earth  is  the  Lord's  and  all  that  is  therein,  the 
world  and  they  that  dwell  thereon,  and  so  the  Is- 
raelite sees  God  everywhere  in  nature;  he  does  not 
make  nature  God,  but  it  is  to  him  a  revelation  of 
God.  "Nature,"  says  Humboldt,  "is  not  described 
as  something  existing  independently  and  glorified 
by  its  own  beauty;  it  always  presents  itself  to  the 
Hebrew  singer  as  related  to  a  higher,  overruling 
spiritual  power.  Nature  is  to  him  a  work  of  orderly 
creation,  the  living  expression  of  the  omnipresence 
of  God  in  the  elements  of  the  world  of  sense." 

I  will  only  refer  to  the  splendid  Psalm  of  thanks- 
giving for  harvest,  the  sixty-fifth :  "Thou  crownest 
the  year  with  thy  goodness,  and  thy  paths  drop  fat- 
ness ;"  to  the  magnificent  twenty-ninth  Psalm,  which 
depicts  with  sublime  majesty  the  glory  of  God  in  the 
thunder-storm,  and  above  all  to  the  one  hundred  and 
fourth:  "O  Lord,  how  great  and  manifold  are  thy 
works;  in  wisdom  hast  thou  made  them  all:  the 
earth  is  full  of  thy  goodness" — a  hymn  which  has 
not  its  equal  in  all  literature.  "One  is  disposed  to 


THE  PSALMS  IN  UNIVERSAL  LITERATURE.      161 

say,"  as  Humboldt  puts  it,  "that  the  picture  of  the 
whole  cosmos  is  presented  in  this  one  psalm,  the 

one  hundred  and  fourth We  marvel  at  seeing 

the  universe,  heaven  and  earth,  depicted  in  a  lyric 
composition  of  such  slight  compass  with  a  few  great 
touches.  Contrasted  with  the  animated  primal  life 
of  nature,  we  have  here  the  noiseless,  toilsome  la- 
bors of  man  from  the  rising  of  the  sun  to  the  close 
of  his  day's  work  in  the  evening."  And  where  else 
is  man  more  profoundly  comprehended  and  depicted 
as  but  a  tiny  atom  in  nature,  and  yet  in  accordance 
with  his  royal  mastery  in  it,  than  in  the  eighth 
Psalm  ?  Where  is  the  whole  creation  as  a  thousand- 
voiced  proclamation  of  the  glory  of  its  creator  better 
depicted  than  in  the  nineteenth  Psalm,  in  which  the 
heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God  and  the  firmament 
showeth  his  handiwork,  the  sun  rises  as  a  bride- 
groom cometh  forth  out  of  his  chamber  and  re- 
joiceth  as  a  strong  man  to  run  a  race ! 

And  of  still  another  sort  of  poetry,  the  didactic 
aphorism,  do  we  find  in  the  Psalter  matchless  jewels. 
A  considerable  number  of  the  Psalms  are  like  neck- 
laces, where  the  most  profound  sentences,  the  most 
glorious  thoughts  are  strung  pearl  on  pearl.  Wher- 
ever we  turn  our  gaze,  a  rich  canopy,  star  after 
star,  an  inexhaustible  treasury! 

Permit  me  in  closing  to  mention  a  recent  personal 
experience  of  mine,  illustrating  the  manner  in  which 
the  Psalms  give  us  the  fitting  word  for  every  situa- 
tion in  life.  One  who  for  days  and  weeks  has 
watched  in  anguish  over  the  life  that  is  dearest  to 


162  THE   CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT   ISRAEL. 

him  on  earth,  when  he  has  already  prepared  to  sur- 
render it,  there  comes  a  turn  for  the  better,  and  the 
angel  of  death  who  has  already  spread  his  dark 
wings  over  the  victim,  departs,  and  life  returns, — 
who  could  express  what  overwhelms  his  deeply 
stirred  heart  in  such  a  moment  save  in  the  words 
of  the  Psalm:  "God  is  unto  us  a  God  of  deliver- 
ances; and  unto  the  Lord  belongeth  escape  even 
from  death."  (Psalms  Ixviii.  20.) 

The  Psalms  are  the  prayer-book  and  the  hymn- 
book  of  Israel ;  and  as  Israel  is  preeminently  the  re- 
ligious race,  they  are  the  prayer-book  and  the  hymn- 
book  of  the  whole  world,  or  at  least  deserve  to  be. 
Of  all  the  precious  things  which  Israel  has  given 
mankind  they  are  perhaps  the  most  precious.  They 
resound,  and  will  continue  to  resound,  as  long  as 
there  shall  be  men  created  in  the  image  of  God,  in 
whose  hearts  the  sacred  fire  of  religion  shines  and 
glows;  for  they  are  religion  itself  put  into  speech. 
To  them  applies  what  one  of  the  noblest  of  them 
says  of  the  revelation  of  God  in  nature:  "That  is 
neither  speech  nor  language,  the  voice  of  which 
would  be  unintelligible.  Their  line  is  gone  out 
through  all  the  earth,  and  their  words  to  the  end 
of  the  world."  (Psalms  xix.  4.) 

Religion  itself  put  into  speech  for  all  mankind, — 
that  is  the  significance  of  the  Psalms  in  universal 
literature. 


INDEX. 


Aaron,  18. 

Abimelech,  27. 

Abraham,  Migration  of,  9;  Re- 
ligious history  begins  with,  56; 
to  David,  Earliest  tradition  of, 
3-4- 

Accents  in  Hebrew,  121. 

Agriculture,   22. 

Algiers,   119-121. 

Allah,  Daughters  of,  97. 

Amenhotep  IV,  55. 

Amos,  46,  119. 

Anarchy,  27-28. 

Animosity  in  Psalms,    151. 

Arminius,    53. 

Asaph,  126,  130. 

Assur  Nasir-Pal,  Plate  XII. 

Bagpipe,  115. 

Barry,    Phillips,    115. 

Baton,   127. 

Becken,   109. 

Bell-tree,  Turkish,    109. 

Benjamin,  Tribe  of,   12. 

Bilhah-tribes,    11-12,    13. 

Blessing  of  Moses,  41. 

Boers,    100. 

Bows,    113. 

Buddha,  40. 

Bugle,    118. 

Bulow,   Hans  von,    107. 

Burying  alive,   98. 

Calvin,  John,  155. 
Canaan,   Conquest  of,   20-24. 
Canaanites,  Religion  of,  10;  trans- 
formed into  Israel,  22. 


Childhood,  79. 

Children,  77-79,  97;  Education  of, 

68ff. 

Chnumhotep,  Tomb  of,  1x3. 
Chronicles    written    by    a    musical 

Levite,   123. 
Cinelli,    109. 
Clarinet,    117. 
Commandments,  The  ten,  17.  See 

also  "Decalogue." 
Counter-point,    124. 
Covenant,   Book  of  the,   41-43  . 
Cymbalist,  Assyrian,  Plate  II. 
Cymbals,    108-109,    126. 

Dagon,  29. 

Dancing,   103. 

Daniel,  Instruments  in  the  Book 
of,  1 06. 

Daughters  in  Israel,  94-97;  of 
Allah,  97- 

David,  148;  and  Saul,  3of,  105, 112; 
Character  of,  31,  35-36;  Polit- 
ical consolidation  due  to,  31; 
Reign  of,  33-37;  Singing  mas- 
ters of,  126. 

Decalogue,  41,  43-48. 

Deuteronomy,   Date  of,   41. 

De  Wette,  41. 

Diogenes,    96. 

Discipline,   84-87. 

Education,  Aim  of,  68;  of  chil- 
dren, 68ff;  of  girls,  92,  96-99; 
Results  of,  100. 

Egypt,  Israel  in,  13-16;  Mono- 
theism in,  55,  62;  Moses  in, 
52;  Religion  of,  54-56. 


164 


THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 


Eighth,  The,   112,   123. 

Elisha,  1 06. 

Esau,   Marriage  of,   71. 

Esther,    Book   of,    151. 

Ethics  of  Israel,  66;  of  the  Psalms, 

149-154. 

Ewald,  Heinrich,  3,  u,  12. 
Exodus,  The,   15-16. 
Ezekiel,    119, 

Falsetto,   128. 

Family  a  unit,   99-100. 

Father    a    monarch,    87,    99;     a 
teacher,  91,  94,  99- 

Flute,  115,  121-125;  players,  As- 
syrian, Plate  VII. 

Founders  of  religion,  39. 

Genesis  contains  primitive  tradi- 
tion, 4. 

Gideon,    Kingship   of,    25-26. 

Girls,  Education  of,  92,  96-99;  in 
the  Orient,  96-99. 

Gittith,   114. 

God-conception  of  Israel,  143-149. 

Goethe,  133,  139,  142. 

Greek  music,  xa*. 

Hammurabi,  Code  of,  42. 

Hannah,  93. 

Harps,  104,  106,  121,  123;  Egyp- 
tian, Plates  I,  II;  Eleven- 
stringed,  Plate  IV;  Four- 
stringed,  in,  Plate  IX;  Human- 
ity a,  136;  -players,  Assyrian, 
xii,  Plates  V,  VII;  Ten- 
stringed,  112;  Triangular,  in, 
Plate  I. 

Hatsotserah,    116-118,   Plate  X. 

Headings  of  Psalms,  101-102,  112, 
114,  128. 

Heman,  126. 

Herder,    133-137. 

Hezekiah,   46,    105,   130. 

History,  Legend  and,  6;  Moses  in 
profane,  50;  Tribal,  23. 

Home  of  Israel,  Primitive,  8. 

Homer,    103,    141. 

Horace,  141. 

Horeb  and  Sinai,  59. 


Hosea,  28,  43,  46. 
Housewife,   Virtuous,   93. 
Human    relationships,    Psalms   in, 

159-160. 
Humboldt,  Alexander  von,  160-161. 

Image  prohibition,  44,  45-46,  61. 

Infant  sacrifice,   xo,  65. 

Inheritance  of  property,  75. 

Instruction  in  religion,  87-89. 

Instruments,  as  accompaniment 
for  singing,  124;  Classes  of  mu- 
sical, 107. 

Isaac,  Sacrifice  of,  xo. 

Israel,  Canaanites  transformed  into 
22;  Ethics  of,  66;  Spirit  pecu- 
liar to,  1 6. 

Jablonski,    Daniel   Ernst,    122. 
Jacob,  and  Rachel,  72;  Migration 

of,   11-13. 

Jairus's  daughter,   115. 

Jeduthun,   126. 

Tephthah's    daughter,    103. 

Jericho,   116,   121. 

Jerome,   Saint,   in. 

Jerusalem,  97;  Founding  of,  34; 
Siege  of,  105. 

Jesus  and  Moses,  37,  39,  67. 

Jezebel,   Queen,   96. 

Jonathan,  Son  of,  80. 

Joseph,  and  Asenath,  55;  Tribe 
of,  12,  13,  26. 

Josephus  on  Moses,   52. 

Joshua,  Campaign  of,  20;  Na- 
tional organization  of,  22. 

Jubal,  inventor  of  music,  105,  112, 
114. 

Kadesh   Barnea,    59;     Sojourn   in 

1 8. 

Khalil,   1 1 6. 

Kinnor,   112-114,   123,  Plate  II. 
Koran,    140-141. 
Language   of   Israel,   7. 
Leah-tribes,    11-12,    13. 
Legend  defined,   5-7. 
Levi,   Tribe   of,    50. 
Levite,    Chronicles    written    by    a 

musical,  123;  Moses  a,  15,  51. 


INDEX. 


165 


Levites,  Groups  of,   126;  Music  of, 

104;   Singing,   129. 
Leviticus,  Date  of,  41. 
Lute,     123;      -players,     Assyrian, 

Plate  II. 
Lutes    on     ancient    coins,     Plate 

VIII. 

Luther,  60,   155. 
Lyres  on  ancient  coins,  Plate  VIII. 

Marriage  ceremony,  76-77,  103; 
contract,  73-76;  of  Esau,  71; 
of  Moses,  53,  57;  of  Samson, 
72. 

Matrimony  in  Israel,  69. 

Melodies  of  Psalms,   128. 

Mendelssohn,  Felix,    152. 

Merenptah,   50,   53. 

Methodological  considerations,  59- 
61. 

Midianites,  Invasion  of,  as;  Mo- 
sea  among  the,  56. 

Migration  of  Abraham,  9;  of  Ja- 
cob, 11-13. 

Miriam,    103. 

Mohammed,    40,    45,    49,   98. 

Moloch,   146. 

Mommsen,   Theodore,   62. 

Monist,  The,   115. 

Monotheism  in  Egypt,  55,  62;  of 
Moses,  61-62. 

Mosaic  faith,  18. 

Mother,   Domestic  control  of,  93. 

Moses  a  founder  of  religion,  16, 
54;  a  genius  in  pedagogy,  60; 
a  Hebrew  at  heart,  15,  53;  a 
Levite,  15,  51;  among  the  Mid- 
ianites, 56;  Death  of,  18,  66- 
67;  in  Egypt,  52;  in  profane 
history,  50;  Name  of,  52;  Na- 
tional religion  due  to,  17;  Na- 
tional unity  due  to,  22;  not  the 
author  of  Pentateuch,  5,  40; 
Marriages  of,  53,  57;  No  authen- 
tic documents,  of,  48;  Our  re- 
lation to,  39;  Religious  organi- 
zation under,  16;  Work  of,  com- 
pleted by  David,  31;  Writings 
of,  41. 

Mozart,   125,    127. 


Music,  Absolute,  124;  Character 
of,  in  Israel,  118-119;  Definition 
of,  10 1 ;  Greek,  122;  in  life,  103- 
105,  118;  in  worship,  103-105; 
Jubal  inventor  of,  105;  of  Le- 
vites, 104;  of  the  temple,  125- 
131;  Modern  Arabian,  119-121; 
Unison  the  ideal  of  Hebrew, 
125- 

Mythology,  Israel  has  no,   17,  63. 

Naomi,  80. 

Nathan's  parable,  95. 

National  kingdom,  Rise  of  the,  a8; 

organization  under  Joshua,   22; 

principle,    Yahveh,    23;    religion 

due  to  Moses,  17;  unity  due  to 

Moses,  22. 

Nature  in  the  Psalms,  160-161. 
Nebel,  110-112,  114,  123. 
Nomads,  zo;  Procession  of,  113. 
Nurses,  79. 

Obedience,  84. 

Obscenity,  Religious,   10,  65. 

Organ,  ii4n. 

Organization  under  Joshua,  Na- 
tional, 22;  under  Moses,  Relig- 
ious, 1 6. 

Parents,  Respect  for,  81-84. 

Pedagogical  principles,  84. 

Pedagogy,  Moses  a  genius  in,  60. 

Penitence  in  the  Psalms,  159. 

Pentateuch,  Authorship  of,   5,  40. 

Percussive  instruments,  107-110. 

Personality  of  God,  143-146. 

Pharaoh  of  the  Exodus,  50. 

Pharaoh's  daughter,  52. 

Philistines,   Conquered  by,  28-29. 

Piatti,   109. 

Pipes,    ii4n,    115,    12511. 

Political  consolidation  due  to  Da- 
vid, 31;  leader,  Moses  a,  49. 

Polychrome  Bible,  102,  104,  H4n, 
i26n,  i28n. 

Polyphony,   124. 

Prayer  of  Moses,  41. 

Priesthood,  Institution  of,  18. 

Priestly  code,  41. 


166 


THE  CULTURE  OF  ANCIENT  ISRAEL. 


Prussia,  Ethnographic  conditions 
of  East,  135. 

Pealms,  Authorship  of,  126;  Di- 
dactic aphorisms  in,  161;  Ethics 
of  the,  149-154;  Headings  of, 
xoif,  112,  114,  128;  in  human  re- 
lationships, 159-160;  in  univer- 
sal literature  ,i33ff ;  Lyric  beauty 
of,  141;  Nature  in,  160-161; 
Penitence  in,  159;  Pleasant  pic- 
tures in,  155-158;  Significance 
of,  154,  162;  Without  temple 
music  no,  132. 

Race-soul,  Herder  the  discoverer 
of  the,  136. 

Rachel-tribes,  11-12. 

Ramses  II,   14,   50,   52,   53. 

Reger,  Max,   125. 

Religion  defined,  143;  Founders  of, 
39;  Instruction  in,  87-89;  Moses 
a  founder  of,  16,  54;  of  Cana- 
anites,  10;  of  Egypt,  54-56;  of 
Israel  due  to  Moses,  17. 

Religious  history  begins  with 
Abraham,  56. 

Respect  for  parents,  81-84. 

Rhythm,  107. 

Ritual  music,  118-119. 

Ruckert,    140. 

Sabbath,  43-45- 

Saints,  Communion  of  the,  151. 
Samson,  Marriage  of,  72. 
Samuel's  time,  Music  in,  106. 
Saul,  David  and,  30-31,  105,  112; 

Reign  of,  29-33. 
Scale,  Musical,   121-123. 
Schiller,  92,   133. 
Silah,  127. 

Self-righteousness   in    Psalms,  150. 
Semler,  Johann  Salomon,  137. 
Serfdom  in  Egypt,  14. 
Serpent,  Brazen,  46. 
Sesostris,   50. 
Shawm,   115. 

Shechem,  27;   Capture  of,  20,   51. 
Shofar,  117. 
Siegfried,   148. 
Sihon,  Kingdom  of,    19. 


Sinai,  16,  18;  and  Horeb,  59. 

Singing,  106-107;  Instruments  as 
accompaniment  for,  124;  of 
psalms,  128;  of  women,  119,  123. 

Sisera,  24. 

Sistrum,  109,  Plate  III. 

Solomon's  temple,  Dedication  of, 
125;  Instruments  for,  iio-iu. 

Song  of  Moses,  41;  of  Zion,  105. 

Spirit  peculiar  to  Israel,  16. 

Strauss,   David  Friedrich,   144. 

Strauss,  Richard,  125. 

String  music,    104,   no. 

Stringed  instruments,  110-114.  126. 

Tabret,  108. 

Tambourine,  103,  108. 

Temple-musicians,  Guild  of,  126; 
orchestra,  125;  service,  Descrip- 
tion of,  129-131. 

Theophany  of  the  burning  bush,  57. 

Thor,   148. 

Timbrels,  103,  108,  128. 

Tone  system,  121. 

Triangle,   no. 

Trumpets,  104,  116-118,  125,  Plates 
X,  XI. 

Twelve  tribes,   n. 

'Ugab,    114-115. 

Universal  literature,   137-138;  The 

Psalms  in,   1335. 
Usurtesen  II,   113. 

Voss,   142. 

Wellhausen,   i26n. 

Wieland,   133. 

Wife,  Selection  of  a,  71. 

Winckler,  Hugo,   105. 

Wind  instruments,    114-118. 

Winebibbers,  115;  Ballads  of,  114- 

Women    in    worship,    99;    Singing 

of,   119,   123;  Tabret  played  by, 

108,  no.     See  also  "Daughters" 

and  "Girls." 

Wood-wind  instruments,   125. 
Worship,  Moses  created  a  simple, 

18,     65;      Music     in,      103-105; 

Women  in,  99. 


INDEX. 


167 


Wotan,    148. 

Wrath  of  God,   146-148,   150. 

Writing,  Knowledge  of,  89-90. 

Yahveh,  146;  Relation  of  Israel 
to,  64-65;  The  name,  17,  57;  the 
national  principle,  23. 


Yahvist  redaction,  Decalogue  of, 

47- 


Zilpah-tribes,    11-12. 
Zion,  Songs  of,   105. 
Zither,  113. 


PLATE  I. 


FIG.     I.       EGYPTIAN    HARPS. 


PLATE  II. 


FIG.    2.       EGYPTIAN    HARP  CARRIED  FIG.    3.      EGYPTIAN  PICTURE  OF 

IN    PROCESSION.  A  BEDOUIN  WITH  KINNOR. 


FIG.    4.       AN    ASSYRIAN    CYMBALIST. 


FIG.    5.       ASSYRIAN  LUTE 
PLAYERS. 


PLATE  III. 


PLATE  IV. 


FIG.     7.        RELIEF    FROM    SENDSCHIRLI    IN    NORTHERN    SYRIA. 


FIG.    8.       AN    ELEVEN  STRINGED    HARP    OF    ANCIENT    BABYLON. 


PLATE  V. 


FIG.    9.       ASSYRIAN    HARPISTS. 
(British  Museum) 


PLATE  VI. 


PLATE  VII. 


FIG.     II.       ASSYRIAN    HARP    AND    FLUTE    PLAYERS. 


FIG.     12.       ASSYRIAN    QUARTETTE. 


PLATE  VIII. 


C/2      w 

-     <u 
H    £ 


PLATE  IX. 


PLATE   X. 


E? 


PLATE  XI. 


FIG.     17.        DETAIL    FROM    FIG.     l6. 


FIG.     1 8.       TRUMPETS    ON    ANCIENT   JEWISH     COIN. 
(After  Madden) 


'  /a 


